The Reckoning My Way
by I Wish He Was Real
Summary: A story about what happens after the group arrives at the safe house. Eventually Chlerek! My first fanfic. Please read! I know it's long but it's worth it! T for some swearing and several R movies mentioned.
1. Waking up safe

**Hi there everybody. This is by no means what I think will actually happen in the Reckoning, just kind of an interesting story about what happens after the group arrives at the safe house. I apologize for the length, which I know is very long and probably all my chapters will be around this length. I'm terrible at cutting out unnecessary parts so I understand if you guys get bored while reading but please just stick with me through the long chapters. I really hope you guys think this is a good story. This is my first fanfic so please review strictly and give me your honest opinion. Sorry about any grammar/spelling errors as well as anything that might seem out of character. By the way I don't own Darkest Powers, obviously.**

Chloe's POV

I was sitting in a room that was completely white and containing only myself, the foldable chair I was sitting on, and Derek, who was standing. I was about to ask him where we were when suddenly music started blaring from invisible speakers and 2 guys popped out of nowhere.

"What the hell! Derek, what's going on?!" I screamed at him. As soon as the words got out of my mouth, he started tapping his foot, bobbing his head, and sort of singing ahhh over and over again. Okay this was getting really weird. Suddenly, I recognized both the music and the two guys. The music was the beginning of Gotta' Be Somebody by Nickelback. The guys behind Derek were Johnny Depp, dressed as Jack Sparrow, and Will Ferrel, dressed as Buddy the Elf. Wow, this is kind of getting scary.

That's when Derek started singing for real and Johnny and Will started dancing really weirdly.

**This time I wonder what it feels like  
To find the one in this life  
The one we all dream of  
But dreams just aren't enough  
So I´ll be waiting for the real thing.  
I'll know it by the feeling.  
The moment when we´re meeting  
will play out like a scene straight off the silver screen  
So I`ll be holdin' my own breath  
Right up to the end  
Until that moment when  
I find the one that I'll spend forever with……**

Then the music got faster and suddenly Will and Johnny's costumes changed. Will was Ricky Bobby in his racing suit and Johnny was Willy Wonka!! What the heck was going on? Then Derek started singing yet again.

**Cause nobody wants to be the last one there  
Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares  
Someone to love with my life in their hands  
There's gotta be somebody for me like that  
Cause nobody wants to do it on their own  
And everyone wants to know they're not alone  
There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere  
There's gotta be somebody for me out there**

**Tonight, out on the street, out in the moonlight  
And dammit this feels too right, it's just like deja vu  
Me standing here with you  
So I'll be holding my own breath, could this be the end  
Is it that moment when, I find the one that I'll spend forever with**

Then the costumes switched again, this time Will became Chaz Michael Michaels from Blades of Glory and Johnny was that really creepy clown guy who's supposed to be the Mad Hatter in the new Alice in Wonderland movie. Talk about weird. Derek was just about to start singing again when a load knock and someone saying my name jolted me awake.

"Chloe?! Chloe, can I come in?" Simon yelled through the door.

"Uh… Yeah sure Simon," I said. I sat up as the doorknob turned and the door began to open. Suddenly I remembered that I was only wearing my underwear and a cami. I blushed even though he wasn't even in the room yet.

"Wait wait wait wait wait Simon!! Don't you dare come in yet!!" I said with as much force as I could manage.

"Okay then. I guess I'll just wait out here," he said and I waited until the door was firmly shut again before getting up. I quickly looked around for my backpack. We had all gotten our own rooms the night before. We hadn't even gotten the chance to look around the house since we were all so tired. It was after all, around 3 in the morning. Thinking about the time, I glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. It read 8:30 AM. What the hell Simon? Why would he feel the need to wake me up at 8:30 in the fricken morning? I made another sweep of the room, taking in my surroundings. There was the bed with light blue bedding, the small bedside table with two drawers built in, a dresser against the wall with the door, and a closet door with a mirror hanging on it. Finding my backpack hung up on the closet hook across the room from the dresser, I walked over to it and grabbed the cleanest shirt I had, which happened to be a black tee-shirt, and my jeans. I slipped into them and left the room.

Simon, of course, was still waiting for me, leaning against the wall across the hall from my room. He smiled when he saw me, I didn't return it.

"Simon what in the world would make you wake me up at 8:30 in the morning?!" I half screamed at him, not knowing if anyone was still sleeping.

"Well in case you don't have a sense of smell, there apparently is breakfast downstairs and Derek isn't up here so he's probably stuffing his face with everything in sight. I just wanted to make sure you got some good breakfast," he murmured, sounding slightly sad.

"Oh… Thanks. Sorry for yelling at you. I'm just really tired. So you haven't been downstairs yet?" I asked as we started walking down the hall, trying to change the mood of the conversation.

"No I haven't," Simon said, obviously happy that I wasn't mad at him. "I just went exploring on this floor, which is apparently just bedrooms and two bathrooms. I guess there are some other people here."

"How do you know that?" I asked. We were almost to the stairs but still in the hall and surrounded by doors. Simon pointed to one of them. On it was a sign that read Casey in big green and blue letters. I looked down the hall seeing that almost all the doors had signs like this one on them. "Oh, well at least we're not here alone."

"Yeah. But they're probably like all adults that are really boring and call us 'Sonny' and 'Darling,'" he said, cracking another smile. I started laughing hysterically, this time returning the smile as we started down the stairs. We reached the bottom and I realized that we had no idea where we were going. Simon seemed to realize it as well because he and I both stopped at the same time. We looked at each other.

"Great. Now we have to hunt down the kitchen," I said. "Might as well split up. This place is huge. Scream when you find it."

"K'. I'll go this way," Simon said, pointing to the left. I nodded and went right.

I began my hunt for the kitchen, looking around at the rooms as I passed them. The stairs led into the fairly large room where the front door we entered through last night was. Nothing else was really in here, only a large cabinet thing and a fancy looking carpet. I kept going right and went through a door way into room filled with computers and file cabinets. Apparently this place was an office too. Then I heard laughter and the sound of plastic hitting plastic. Maybe there were kids here after all. There was another doorway on the other side of the room. Through it I could see a big L-shaped couch and a big screen TV. There was a huge doorway on the other side of that room. I couldn't see what was on the other side of that doorway so I walked through the computer room and stopped at the first doorway. The kitchen was just past the couch room. It looked humongous from what I could see. On one side was all the kitchen equipment and cabinets and other stuff kitchens have. There was an island off to the equipment side and an oval shaped table on the other.

I smiled when I saw the table because Derek was sitting at it. Not just sitting, but stuffing his face with something that looked like pancakes. He was surrounded by about 12 plates that were all empty and stacked in random piles. Simon had been right. He looked up as though he had either smelled or heard me and the biggest smile appeared on his face, his teeth and the food he was chewing showing. He waved enthusiastically and beckoned me to come in. I was about to step into the couch room when suddenly the weirdest thing ever crossed my path.

A guy around my age with dark brown hair was holding onto the handle of a red light saber and walking backwards past me. A girl with a lighter shade of brown hair around the same age was holding onto the other end and being dragged by the guy across the room. Another girl the same age with an orangey brown hair color ran after them. They all were laughing hysterically. I looked the way they had come from, seeing that the couch room was much bigger than I expected. On the far end was another-shaped couch that also faced the TV. Over by the wall were two more teenagers fighting with a blue and green light saber, saying pew pew pew over and over again. One more teen sat on the couch on the far side of the room, using a laptop and shaking her head. I started laughing again and couldn't stop. None of them but the girl on the couch noticed as I walked through the couch room and into the kitchen to sit with Derek.

"Trust me this is one of the most normal things they've done in days," a woman's voice said from the equipment side of the kitchen. I jumped and looked over to the source of the sound. A woman with short, wavy blond hair that hung down to just pass her ears and blue eyes who looked around 40 was walking towards me. She was wiping her hands with a dish towel, which she set down on the island. Holding out her hand, she said, "I'm Claire, basically the hose keeper of the house. And cook, which Derek seems very thankful for. I'm an air half-demon too. Are you Chloe or Tori?"

I shook her hand and said I was Chloe. She turned back to the stove and began with the usual nice to meet you stuff. I glanced at Derek with a questioning look on my face, trying to see if she was okay. He just smiled again and nodded. I walked over to the doorway and screamed, "Simon!! I found the kitchen!! Watch out though. There's apparently a galactic war going on!"

"Coming!!" he screamed from somewhere else in the house. I turned back to the kitchen, where Derek had finally swallowed his food.

"Hi Chloe!! Sleep well? I did! I got up at like 7:00 when I smelled Claire's amazing cooking. You should really try some!!" he said in a very un-Derek hyper voice. I gave him an I'm-Kind-of-Weirded-Out look. He just shrugged and turned back to his plate. I went to the side of the table he was on and sat next to him.

"You're very perky this morning," I said to him. He turned to me and grumbled something with his mouth full that I couldn't understand. "What?" I asked. As he attempted to swallow as fast as he could, I looked at his face. He had a subtle black eye from the night with Liam and Ramon. His acne was pretty much gone and his hair no longer greasy at all. He defiantly looked a lot better than those days at Lyle House. Then I looked at his bright green eyes. I realized then they were kind of hot. _Whoa_ _there Chloe! What the hell are you thinking?! This is Derek we're talking about. He's not hot! _Or was he? I always thought Simon was kind of attractive but Derek? I guess that in my mind I always though of him as the guy I first met at Lyle House. Now that I looked at him, I actually did admit that he was kind of attractive.

"I said that there's actual breakfast! Really good breakfast too. And Claire makes anything you could ever want!" Derek said, knocking me out of my weird trance. I smiled and blushed a little for what I had been thinking earlier. I laughed at his enthusiasm and it was apparently contagious because soon Derek was laughing hysterically too. I'd never heard him actually laugh before. He had a really nice one too, low but not in anyway menacing or anything like that. We we're still laughing when Simon walked in.

"Hey you were right. There is a galactic war going on and why are you guys laughing hysterically?" he asked as he came in and sat across the table from me. Derek and I looked at each other and started laughing even harder. I was laughing so hard that I almost fell out of my chair. Actually I would have if Derek didn't catch me as usual. This made us laugh even harder than before and it was a few minutes until we could finally stop. By that time we were leaning against each other, both holding our sides. When I realized that I was almost completely against him I blushed and sat back up, quickly calming down. Derek soon followed suit and we were finally capable of talking.

"Sorry bro," Derek said to Simon, who was looking really freaked out. "She just started laughing and then I started laughing and then you came in and we couldn't stop."

"Yeah I got that part. So where's the food?" he asked looking at the plates hungrily.

"Oh. I'm sorry," Claire began. "You must be Simon. I'm Claire and do basically everything around the house. You guys must be hungry. Here, come get what ever you want. Take as much as you want. I have to make quadruple batches with the number of teenagers in this house. Come get everything before the others come in."

Simon and I went to the counter where Claire had set out all the food. There was a ton, everything from bacon to double chocolate muffins. We filled up two plates and a glass of milk, and orange juice each then went and sat back down. Claire then filled a plate of her own, got a cup of coffee, and came and sat next to Simon.

"I'll wait until you are all finished to call everyone else in. Derek told me what you guys have been through," she said. "I can't believe you all survived that. Especially the werewolves. It's amazing that you two got through that with Derek only getting a black eye. The fact that the Edison Group used actual bullets worries me too. They might actually want you kids dead now. You'll be safe here though, don't worry about that. I'm just worried about the other kids from their experiments. Most of them are here of course but there are a few still out there. Even supernaturals who were never involved with the Edison Group might be in trouble now."

She kept saying stuff like that. We all kind of half listened as we ate, everyone getting not only seconds, but thirds (Derek actually got up to 5ths). Tori eventually came down, looking, well, not that pissed off and maybe a little happy.

"Why are there a bunch of teens playing with light sabers?" she asked as she came into the room and sat at the head of the table next to me. I couldn't help it, I started laughing again, not as hard as before but still. This time Simon, Derek, and Claire started laughing with me. Tori was looking really freaked out by the time we settled down.

"Nobody really knows," I finally said. "There's food on the counter." Tori jumped up immediately when she heard this and scrambled to get to the food. She filled up a few plates and got something to drink then sat back down. Claire introduced herself and we all just talked for while. It was nice to just talk about random stuff, nothing that involved survival or getting to where we need to go. After like 30 minutes, the other kids started coming in.

**So did everyone like it? If you did, tell me what you think and if you didn't, please tell what you think. As you can tell, I sometimes have a weird mind so it will come out in dreams. The light saber scene is real by the way. I was the one who got dragged across the floor by one of my bff's twin brother and I also was one of the people who were fighting with them and saying pew pew pew. It was immature and amazingly fun. So anyway many of the scenes I put in will actually be real as well as most of the characters I put in will be based on people I know, such as Claire who was inspired by my awesome math teacher. So review please!! I'll only update when I get at least 5 reviews from 5 different people.**


	2. Trampoline!

**Hey again everybody! Thanks for the reviews! I decided not to wait for five cause I was tired of waiting. ****I would like to address the reviews made by Death Preistess** **and chloeify123.**** I am very aware that Derek wasn't really himself but the reason he's so hyper is 'cause he'd been stuffing his face with actual real breakfast food, which I think would make him happy. Anyway I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. I know you guys might be a little mad but this chapter isn't introductions. That'll be next and I will post it soon. Again I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors and any out-of-character stuff, and I do know that Chloe and Derek are most defiantly not themselves in this chapter. And I don't own Darkest Powers.**

Chloe's POV

As the other kids walked in, I counted them. There were six of them, three girls and three guys, all probably just a year or two different in age from me. They all obviously knew where the food would be because they all ran and pushed to try to get a spot to get something to eat. No one seemed to notice us until the guy who had been dragging the one girl across the floor had gotten his food and turned around. Seeing us, he punched one of the other guys, making him freak out.

"Don't act like such a pig around our new house buddies!" the punching guy said. This of course sent all eyes to the table and onto us. Everyone just kind of stared at the other group until Claire broke the silence.

"For God's sake kids!" she said to the people still huddled around the food. "They're just people! We'll have introductions after everyone is up and fed." Turning to us, she added, "Why don't you guys go outside on the porch while we wait for everyone to wake up."

We all said some sort of "okay" then got up. Realizing that none of us knew where the porch was I asked, "Um… how exactly do we get to the porch?" Some of the other kids rolled their eyes at this but it wasn't like we had been in this house for anywhere near as long as they had.

"Go into the TV room, turn right, go through the door way at the back of the room. You'll come into a back room that has a whole wall of windows and a door in the middle of it. The door leads to the porch. Feel free to explore the yard, we have a fence so you can't get lost. It's electric though so don't touch it," Claire said as she glared at the kids whose eyes had rolled.

"Thanks Claire," Derek said as we left the room. We followed Claire directions and soon found ourselves on a huge porch that led to an even larger patio that led to the actual yard, which was humongous. There was a large open clearing that was easily five acres just in front of us. There was a huge pile of wood to the right of the clearing. In the middle was an extremely large willow tree, the perfect one for climbing. The clearing was surrounded on all sides except for the one with the house by forest. You could tell that the forest was pretty deep. On the patio was a large fire pit surrounded by around 20 chairs. Right next to the patio was my favorite part of the whole yard.

"Trampoline!!" I screamed, already running over to it. I ran off the porch and onto the patio. I jumped onto one of the chairs and jumped from one to another as I made my way to the wonderful trampoline. It was a really big trampoline, like three times the size of a normal backyard one. I jumped off the chairs and jumped over all the stairs leading down to the grassy lawn. I ran straight to the trampoline, found the opening in the net, swung myself, in and started jumping and giggling like a five year old. I loved trampolines!! Turning back to Derek, Simon, and Tori, I saw they were all looking at me like I had suddenly lost my mind.

"Chloe, what the hell are you doing?" Tori asked.

"Jumping on the trampoline. What? Have any of you actually been on one of these things?! They're so much fun! Come on. Get over here and try it!!" I screamed at them. I was now doing butt-bounces, where you jump up then fall onto your butt on the trampoline and fly up into the air. They were still looking at me like I was suddenly a two headed donkey. Then Derek laughed, an actual laugh like at the table, and started walking over to the trampoline.

"Uh Derek? What are you doing?" Simon asked as if his brother had just started running around and bawking like a chicken.

"Well Chloe seems to be enjoying herself and I never actually have been on a big trampoline so what the hell," he replied, now at the stairs. I beckoned him enthusiastically and he pulled off his shoes and socks and climbed up. He started jumping and looked ridiculous. I mean how often do you see a six foot guy jumping on a trampoline? Never. He started laughing then, as if realizing the very same thing. Again the laughter was contagious and I soon caught it.

We laughed and jumped for a while, him making me double jump, when one person jumps right after the other and sends the first person flying really high into the air. I'd never been on a trampoline with a guy before and never expected going that high. The first time I suddenly went like 7 feet into the air, screaming hysterically, thinking that I was going to go over the net and land on the ground. I didn't though but I did land right next to Derek, knocking him off his feet and onto his back. We were both kind of stunned for and for a minute we just laid there looking at each other in shock. Then I burst into laughter and Derek did the same.

"Did-heheheh- you hear-heheheh- me screaming-hehehehe!!!" I said between laughs.

"Yeah- hahahah- you went-hahaha- like 8 feet-hahaha- in the air!!" Derek said between his laughs.

"Now I'll teach you how to butt-bounce!!" I told him and grabbed his hand, trying to pull him to his feet. He got up and I explained how to butt-bounce. It was hilarious seeing him not getting something so simple, and him falling down over and over. It took him like ten tries to finally do it right, sending him four feet into the air. He landed on his feet, looking really surprised and proud and screamed, "I did it! I did it!"

"You did it! You did it!" I said in the same kind of voice he used. I jumped over to him and hugged him. He looked kind of surprised but soon relaxed, hugged me back, and started jumping with me, both of us saying either "I did it" or "You did it" over and over again.

Then we heard a laugh that wasn't ours and turned stepping away from each other, finally remembering Tori and Simon. They both were looking at us and were completely freaked out. They both had big smiles on their faces, trying not to laugh. Simon seemed to be the one who had let a laugh slip. He turned to Tori and asked, "You want to go on it?" He clearly wanted to go but didn't want Tori standing there thinking all of us were idiots.

"What the hell?" Tori said, pulling off her shoes and socks and walking towards me and Derek. Simon did a little happy dance as he followed her. They got to the trampoline and climbed in. I guess the thing was extra durable because the springs didn't even creak under the weight.

All of us started jumping together. Everyone was double-jumping each other. I taught Tori and Simon to butt-bounce and we did that for a while. Somehow, no one got hurt and we were just all jumping and laughing like toddlers. Then we decided to play popcorn, when one person sits in the middle of the trampoline and holds their legs against their chest and the other people try jumping around them trying to get them to let their legs go. It was practically impossible to get Derek to pop, him being a super-strong werewolf and all, but we had a lot of fun trying though. Simon eventually just jumped _on_ him and Derek started swearing like crazy and let go of his legs. Tori and I then collapsed in laughter, rolling around the trampoline like idiots. We switched off being the popcorn for like 30 minutes. By that time we all had sore stomachs from laughing so hard.

"Okay kids! Everyone's up and has eaten! Time for introductions!" Claire screamed from the porch. Again we acted like toddlers, moaning and mumbling that we didn't want to leave the trampoline. We sadly got off it though and walked inside.

**So what did everyone think of this one? Like the whole trampoline thing? I love them so I felt like I needed to put one in. Again I know nobody was really themselves but after being so serious for around a week, they have to let loose and have some fun being immature. That's what I would do anyway. Don't worry, you'll meet the even more immature kids and other people soon. So please review, whether you loved it or hated it PLEASE review! I want to know what you think and what I need to do differently or what I should keep the same. I'll post the next chapter soon.**


	3. House buddies

**Hello again everyone! I would like to say thank you to all those who reviewed. I'm so happy that everyone enjoyed the first two chapters, I had no idea that they were really that funny. So I hope you enjoy this chapter and I know it's sort of boring so I'll try to post the next chapter soon. Once again I am sorry for spelling/grammar errors and anything that seems out of character. I also defiantly don't own Darkest Powers.**

Chloe's POV

We were still laughing like idiots when we got inside. Claire was waiting just by the door for us.

"Well you guys seemed to like the trampoline," she said, obviously amused, like she had been watching us for a while.

"Yeah I guess we did," Tori said. Simon, Derek, and I all looked at her in shock.

"What?" Tori asked when she saw our faces.

"Tori actually enjoyed something?" Simon said.

"Yeah I do enjoy some things believe it or not Simon," Tori said in a pissed of voice.

"Come on you guys!" I said. "Do we all have to fight every second of the day? I thought we had a rule against it!"

"I guess we do. Sorry Tori," Simon mumbled.

"It's okay. I'm with Chloe anyway. Don't want all those other kids thinking we're just a bunch of grouches," Tori added.

"Speaking of those other kids," Claire said. "Everyone's waiting for you guys in the TV room."

"Oh yeah," we all said, remembering that we had come in for an actual reason.

Claire led the way to the couch room, actually I guess it was called the TV room. One whole couch was occupied with people, the teens we had seen earlier and another guy and another girl around the same age as the others. The other couch was only half full, this one having only adults on it. There was Andrew, who looked happy to see us, a really tall, muscular man who was probably in his 40s, two women who were around Tori's height who looked in their late 20s or early 30s, then another guy who looked around the same age as the women.

Everyone had their eyes on us. Claire went and sat next to the tall guy, taking his hand. We followed and sat on the half of the couch that didn't have the people sitting on it. Simon sat down next to Andrew. Derek sat next to him and then I went next to him and Tori sat next to me. Everyone was still looking when Claire stood up again.

"Okay well let's get this introduction thing started." She turned to the side of the couch we were sitting on and spoke again. "We usually only have a person or two came at a time. Then we have one person take the new people on a tour of the house and introduce them to everyone. Considering that there are four of you though and it's a Saturday, our essential supplied shopping day, we're just going to go around in a circle and tell everyone who we are and stuff like that." Turning back to the other kids, she said, "Okay. Casey why don't you start? Stand up, say your name, what you are, how old you are, and a few things about yourself."

The girl who had been dragged across the floor earlier stood up and I got a better look at her. She was probably 5' 5" with dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and fairly skinny. She wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt that said Cedar Point on it.

"Well I'm Casey," she said. "I'm 15 and a shaman. I like to astral project, ride roller coasters, read, do things that are meant to be scary, watch movies, eat popcorn and other junk food, be immature, and am kind of quiet but will talk about anything someone else brings up." Casey sat back down.

"Okay, thanks Casey. Now why don't you go next Kyle and then well just continue around the couch," Claire said.

The guy who had been dragging Casey around stood up next. He had a darker shade of brawn hair than she had and was a few inches taller than her and pretty skinny for a guy. He had brownish eyes and wore jeans with a blue hoddy.

"Yeah so I'm Kyle. Actually my first name is Matt but I prefer Kyle and will seriously hurt someone if they call me Matt. Anyway I'm 15 and a sorcerer. I like to act like an idiot, play the bass, mess around with my powers, and annoy people." He sat back down and a girl who had the same hair and eyes as he did stood up.

"Well I'm Alex and Matt is my twin brother so I'm obviously 15 too. I'm a witch and like to read, play sports, and annoy my brother," she said. Alex sat down and then and the guy who hadn't been in the kitchen stood up. He was a little shorter than Derek and pretty muscular too. He had brownish blond hair, light green eyes, and really hot.

"I'm James. I'm a 17 year old werewolf who likes to sleep in, make up nicknames for people, pull really elaborate pranks, act idiotically, and I'll kill anyone who makes Casey upset," he said. At this Tori and I looked at each other and were really freaked out. Seeing our expressions, Casey threw a pillow at James and said, "He's kidding about the killing part. I'm his girlfriend. Well unofficial mate if you want to get specific."

"Okay let's get back to introductions please," Claire said. "Your turn Jake."

Another guy stood up, this one was shorter than and not as skinny as the others but not exactly fat. He had black hair and blue eyes. "I'm Jacob or Jake, I don't really care what one you call me by. I'm 14 and a sorcerer. I like to make comic books, play video games, and hang out with all these guys." Jake sat back down and the girl next to him stood up. She had orangey brown hair and blue eyes and was around the same height as Jake.

"I'm Julie, a 14 year old necromancer. I like to read, mess with Casey, shop, and I get scared really easily, especially when ghosts pop up." _That makes two of us_, I thought. Julie sat down and the last guy stood up. He was around the same height as the first one, Kyle. He had light blond hair and blue eyes as well.

"So I'm Charlie and am 16. I'm an earth half-demon and like to watch stupid reality TV shows, play the guitar and piano, listen to music, and blow stuff up." He had an awesome British accent. He sat back down and the last teen stood up. She had light brown hair, hazel eyes, and was average height.

"I'm Charlotte, 16, and a water half-demon. I enjoy acting, singing, playing the violin, musicals, being immature, and Harry Potter." She sat back down and then Claire stood back up and turned to us.

"Okay so now that all the kids have told you who they are, it's our turn. You already know that I'm Claire and an air half-demon. I'm 43 and James and Jake's mom. I like to cook, watch sappy soap operas, and help people in anyway I can." She sat back down and motioned for the guy whose hand she had been holding to stand up. Reluctantly he did. He was easily 6 foot 5 and as I said earlier, really muscular. He had shoulder length brown hair that turned gray at the temples and blue eyes.

"Well I'm Frank. I'm 46 and a werewolf. I'm married to Claire and father of James and Jake. I like to fly aircrafts, do yard work, eat cookies, drink Coke, be sarcastic, entertain teenagers, and read classical books." After Frank sat down, one of the other women stood up. She was pretty thin and muscular, with blond hair and hazel eyes.

"Okay I'm Libby and a fire half-demon. I'm 28 and enjoy watching TV, baking, and helping Claire around the house." Next was the other woman who was around the same height as the first but with brown hair pulled into a pony tail and green eyes.

"I'm Anna and I'm a 30 year old witch. I like reading magazines, dressing in fancy clothes, and getting a tan." She sat down and the last new person stood up. He was Asian and had short black hair and a faint goatee. His right ear was pierced.

"Hi. I'm Miles and I'm 32 and a necromancer. I like to talk to dead people, shoot guns, and watching cheesy movies." _Yay an experience necromancer_ I thought. Maybe he can teach me some stuff.

"Well you guys already know me so I won't say anything," Andrew said.

"Okay then," Claire said. "Simon do you want to introduce yourself?"

"Sure," Simon said as he stood up. "Well I'm Simon and I'm 15 and a really crappy sorcerer. I like drawing stuff, making comics, acting like an idiot, and watching movies about genetically altered sharks." Simon sat down but Derek didn't stand. Simon nudged him but Derek just sat there. "Bro tell everyone who you are," Simon said. Derek sighed and got up.

"I'm Derek, 16, and a werewolf. I like not talking to others, eating, sleeping, and trampolines. And according to Chloe, I'm not usually this perky," he said. The trampoline thing made me giggle. As Derek sat down, I got up.

"I'm Chloe. I'm a 15 year old necromancer with abnormally strong powers. I like anything that involves movies, listening to music, watching Survivor, and watching guys make fools of themselves on trampolines," I said. I sat back down and Tori stood.

"So I'm Tori and a 16 year old witch with out of control powers. I _enjoy_ shopping, computers, and not having to sleep in abandoned apartments with re-animated corpses in them," Tori said and sat back down.

"Well I guess we're done with intros," Claire said, looking straight at me, Simon, Derek, and Tori. "All of us adults usually go out on Saturdays for a day away from all the chaos here. Do you kids want us to stay, today is your first day here after all?" We all looked at each other. None of us really seemed to care.

"No you can go ahead and leave," Derek said. "We'll be fine."

"Okay then," Claire said. She then turned to the other adults. "Well why don't we leave in say… 15 minutes?" All the adults agreed in some way. "Okay, so I guess we're done here then. Everyone can go do whatever they want now." As soon as the words left her mouth, everyone was up. All the adults left the room. The other teens just kind waved and left the room as well. All except the two who were a couple. They came walking towards us, the girl, Casey, looking like she had to drag the guy, James who looked like he really didn't want to be here, over to us.

"Hey guys!" Casey exclaimed. "We were going to start a game of hide and seek right after this. Want to play?"

"Um… Maybe next time. I kind of want to explore the house right now," I said.

"Yeah I agree with Chloe," Derek said.

"I kind of want to go back to sleep so, no thanks," Simon said, heading for the stairs.

"Me too," Tori said, following Simon.

"Alright then," Casey said. "Well welcome to the house. We'll probably start another game tomorrow morning so if you guys do want to play then just wait 'til tomorrow. Come on James, let's go find the others!" She started heading for the exit the other kids had went through, pulling James behind her again. He looked back at us as he walked along, nodding to Derek and moving his lips slightly. When Derek laughed a little, I realized that the guy had said something that only werewolves could hear. When they left the room, I turned to Derek.

"What did he say?!" I exclaimed.

"What?" Derek asked. "Oh… Uh… Nothing. So want to go exploring?"

"Sure," I said. "Let's go."

**Okay so what did everyone think of my people. I got almost all their names from Lost (the best show on the face of this planet!). I based most of the teens off of my friends or other people at my school. The adults were just based off of the people on Lost that they were named for with the exception of Frank, who I tried to base mostly off of one of my LA teachers. Just to let you know, Casey is basically me (besides the fact that she has an incredibly awesome boyfriend, who is based off of Sawyer who I LOVE, and I've never been even remotely close to getting one) so anything she says will probably be what I think of something. If you guys want I'll post a long author's note telling who everyone is based on. Please review and tell me what you think whether you hated it or not!! Please?! Just a simple smiley or frowny face will make me happy! I'll post the next chapter as soon as I can.**


	4. Exploring

**Hello everybody!!! Sorry it took me so long to update. During the weekdays I probably will only update once because of my stupid parents have decided that I have to go upstairs at 10:00! Between 8:00 and 10:00 is when I have free time and also when I type so I'm really pissed that I can't type much and that I have to go up so early. Well early for me because I'm usually downstairs until like 11:00 watching the good movies and typing. During the weekends though I will update at least once too because I'm until around midnight so I type a lot. So anyway, I'm sorry again for the long wait and I know that this chapter is really long and boring but I tried to add as much semi-funny stuff as I could to try to keep it as interesting as I could. I apologize yet again for any spelling/grammar errors and anything that is out of character. And I also don't own Darkest Powers.**

Chloe's POV

Derek and I started our exploration of the house in the TV room. There was just the two L couches, faced towards each other forming a square, the big screen TV that was right in the middle of the room, and then the counters with drawers and cabinets that ran along a whole wall. We looked through the cabinets. Some held puzzles, craft things, blankets, and CDs. Finding nothing of real interest, we left the room. The next room was a dining room. It had one of the biggest tables I'd ever seen, covered with a white table cloth, and two very large cabinet thingys that held a bunch of fancy plates, bowls, and utensils.

The next room looked like a reading room or something like that. It had several small couches, comfy looking armchairs, and small tables with a few chairs around them. Two whole walls were occupied with book shelves. Most had plain old novels, including Harry Potter and Vampire Academy, but there were two whole bookshelves that were stuffed with books about supernaturals, organized by race. I was definitely going to have to come back here. I looked over to Derek who was staring at the werewolf books longingly.

"Why don't we come back here after we're done with the rest of the house?" I suggested.

"Yeah that's probably a good idea," Derek said. "We both probably need to read about what we are."

"That's for sure, for me anyway. Should we move on?"

"Sure," he said. We walked next to each other out of the reading room. We came to a room with thick carpet, fancy couches, a small table, a few armchairs, and a grand piano. Derek decided to go check out the piano and I followed. He sat down and to my surprise, started playing the theme to Jurassic Park perfectly. I just stood there staring for a while. Finally, the shock wore off and I could speak.

"I didn't know you could play the piano," I said.

"Yeah I can," Derek replied, still playing. "Dad made us do some extracurricular activity starting in 3rd grade and I wanted to do something that didn't involve interacting with many people so I choose this."

"You're really good," I said, still amazed. "I tried playing the piano once and failed miserably. I had like five lessons and I couldn't remember what keys were where. The teacher eventually just quit." He laughed again, now done with the song.

"That's kind of sad," he said. Just then, Julie came running in. She ran by us and hid behind the curtain of the window behind Derek and the piano bench. She poked her head out.

"If anyone asks, I'm not here," she said, smiling. "Welcome to the house guys. I'm happy that there's another necro around. We should hang out some time Chloe."

"Yeah, I'd like that," I said.

"Cool, so remember, I'm not here." She ducked back behind the curtain. I turned back to Derek

"You want to go?" he said.

"Sure." He stood up and we moved on. The next room was the front hall that the stairs led into. We didn't bother looking around here. There was another room right across the hall from the piano room. I have no idea how I missed that earlier today. This room looked like a sort of trophy and memory room, with a ton of trophies and pictures everywhere. There was a large table in the center with counters on the back wall. There were also piles of scrapbooks and photo albums stacked on the counters. We spent a few minutes flipping through the books and looking at the pictures. When I opened one of the cabinet doors to see what was in them, I screamed, letting the door close. Derek was at my side in an instant, asking what was wrong. I pointed at the cabinet, my hand shaking. Derek reached for the door and started pulling it open. Suddenly, a hand reached out from inside and slapped his. He let out a barely audible squeak of terror and let go of the door. I started laughing hysterically as the cabinet doors opened. One of the guys was inside, holding a finger to his mouth.

"Will you shut the hell up?!" he whispered-yelled. "I'm kind of hiding here!"

"Yeah. Sorry. I think we're done here anyway," I said when I finally stopped laughing. I looked over to Derek who looked really embarrassed but on the verge of laughter. I started walking towards the other side of the room where there was a hallway. Derek followed me and as soon as we were in the hallway, I turned around to face him.

"You shrieked!!" I screamed at him. "Derek Souza was scared!"

"Shut up," he mumbled, still embarrassed. Then he straightened a little and spoke louder. "Believe it or not I actually do get scared. I just usually don't show it."

"Still. That was hilarious!" I screamed. I turned back around and continued down the hallway. At the end, it curved off to the side but there was also a door. I choose to go with the door. Hoping there wasn't anyone behind it, I opened it and saw a mud room. There were a bunch of cubby like things, each with a few pairs of shoes, a jacket or two, and then some outdoor accessories like hats and scarves.

"Hey everybody!" came Claire's voice from a small intercom in the wall. "We're leaving now, now buring the house down or anything that will destroy the house!" I heard the front door open and then close. I guess all us teens were home alone now. Derek and I left the room. When we turned to the part of the hallway that we hadn't gone through yet, I groaned at what lay before us.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said, walking into a room that looked exactly like a classroom. "I thought we were just going to hang out here and stuff, not do school work! If I have to do anymore algebra I think I'm going to scream."

"Come on, math's not that bad," he said, now sitting on one of the 15 desks.

"Coming from the college level 16 year old, that doesn't mean much."

"Yeah that I can see that but still, is it really that terrible?"

"Not really but do you want to do anything involving school right now?"

"You have a point there," he said. I started looking around the room. There were a bunch of desks, some cabinets, a closet, and two white boards. It looked almost exactly like an actual classroom. Then I looked closer at one of the boards. There was writing on it. I moved a little closer to read it.

"What the hell?" I said after reading it. Derek got off of the desk and came over to me, even though he could probably see it perfectly fine. He began reading off the board.

"The frenetic one-eyed squirrel rode his silver plated unicycle to Starbucks. He met his friend, the gullible chipmunk, there. The chipmunk bought the squirrel a decaf mocha. The squirrel hated decaf coffee drinks. He slapped the chipmunk for his insolence. Okay that is really weird."

"No kidding. Now the only question is why is it on the board?"

"Oh… The squirrel and chipmunk thing?" Charlotte said as she walked in. "Frank was a language arts teacher before they came here and so he tries to keep us up to date in LA for when or if we return to school. Right now we're working on types and parts of sentences so he made up an awesome story about a frenetic one-eyed squirrel and a gullible chipmunk. I got to go now, there's not much time left to hide." She then ran out of the classroom and into the mud room.

"Okay then," I said. Suddenly, I smelt something. "Do you smell…"

"Popcorn. Yes," Derek said before I could finish. "I don't think there's any around here though. At almost all our schools the rooms smelled like popcorn."

"I know what you mean," I said. "You want to keep going?"

"Sure." We went through the doorway on the other side of the room. It led into another hallway that extended on both sides. We went left and came to a door. Derek opened it and we saw a huge room. We walked in and realized that it was an immensely large exercise room. It had every cardio machine that I had ever seen and then five more and around 25 weight machines. There was a mini track in the middle of the room and there were several shelves that held other types of exercise equipment. Derek was just staring at the room, looking like he was going to start jumping up and down and screaming excitedly.

"Wow," he said, still staring. "Now this is a gym."

"No doubt about it," I said, now smirking at him. "You want to hang out here for a while." Snapping out of his little trance, Derek turned to me.

"No it's cool. We can go," he said.

"Derek if you want to stay we can stay. I probably need a good workout anyway. Although a change of workout clothes would be nice."

"Yeah," he said still a little distracted. "How 'bout if we finish looking around the house, change clothes, then come back here for a while."

"Sounds good to me," I said. I didn't mention that we were supposed to go back to the little reading room. Derek definitely wanted exercise more than he wanted to read about werewolves. We left the room, following the hallway. We wound up in the same back hall where the door to the porch was. I could still smell the popcorn and it smelled really, really good. I started looking around everywhere trying to find the source of the smell. I saw that Derek was sniffing the air furiously. I guess he did think there was popcorn somewhere. Seeing a door at the far end of the room, I started walking over to it. I opened it and the wonderful smell of buttered popcorn washed over me. I looked inside and screamed with happiness.

"Chloe, what is it?" Derek yelled running over to me. Seeing what lay inside the door he stopped dead in his tracks.

"NO WAY!!!" I screamed. "I officially love this house!!" I ran into the small room. It was chock full of any sort of snack you could ever want while watching a movie. It was even set up like a movie theater concession stand. There was a counter that held all sorts of candy and a pop machine that had all the good types of pop. Behind the counter was a movie theater popcorn popper that had popcorn in it. There was also one of those revolving heat boxes that held soft pretzels and nachos. There were so many wonderful things stuffed into that tiny little room. That's when I saw the other door. I ran over to it, praying it was what I hoped it was. I threw the door open and screamed even louder than before.

"It's a fricken' home theater!!!!!!!!!" I screamed, now jumping up and down. Derek came running and his jaw dropped.

"Damn," he said. "This place has everything." We walked into the home theater, which was a perfect mini replica of an actual theater, with a screen that was about half the size of a normal screen and only three rows of actual theater seats, eight in each row. There was a little stand of to the right side of the door that I assumed controlled the projector. On the left side of the room was another door. Derek walked over and opened it.

"Holy shit!!" he yelled. I ran over to him and stopped dead in my tracks at the door. Inside was a room that must run the entire length of the theater. There were two rows of shelves that ran along the whole length of the room. Those shelves were stuffed with DVDs. There were signs above the shelves that told what genre the movie was. There was every genre that I could think of. After I recovered from the shock of seeing the DVDs, I ran into the room.

"It's a whole personal Blockbuster!!" I screamed. Derek was now laughing at me and walking straight towards the horror section. We spent like ten minutes looking at all the movies and screaming when we saw a movie we liked. After a while, I remembered about the workout we had planned. I looked over to Derek who had probably been thinking about it but didn't want to say anything. No matter how much I loved looking around DVD room, I knew that he really did need exercise.

"You want to go back to the gym now?" I asked him, knowing he never would. He looked over at me.

"Oh. Sure. You want go get changed?" he said.

"Um… Okay," I replied. "Are you going to change too?"

"Yeah I guess." We left the room, with me casting one last longing look into the DVD room. It took us a while to remember where the stairs were and then even longer to figure out where our rooms were. Derek's room wound up being right next to mine. We quickly went into our rooms and changed. I only had my one pair of jeans so I had to live with those. I changed shirts though, this time into a dark green graphic tee. I put on my shoes and left my room. Derek, of course, was already changed and leaning in almost the exact spot Simon had earlier today. He was wearing jeans as well and had a light yellow shirt on.

"Ready?" Derek asked.

"Yup!" I said. We walked back down the stairs. As we passed through the TV room, we saw Simon and Tori fighting over the remote.

"Simon I want to watch Project Runway!! I haven't seen any of this season!!" Tori was screaming.

"Yeah right, like I'm gonna watch a show about making clothes. I want to watch Armageddon!" Simon was screaming back at her. Then he saw us and smiled. "Hey guys. Can you please tell Tori that Project Runway is a complete waste of time and that Armageddon is one of the best movies ever!?"

"I'm with Simon," Derek said. Simon turned to me.

"Chloe, you agree with me right?" he asked desperately.

"Simon, Project Runway will always be the choice for girls. Especially those like Tori."

"HEY!!" Tori screamed at me.

"Don't worry Simon, I agree with you," Casey said as she walked in. "I despise all fashion shows. Armageddon is amazing. That Russian guy is so awesome!"

"Thank you Casey!" Simon said. "See Tori that's why we should watch Armageddon."

"Over my dead body," Tori said dangerously and taking a step towards Simon. Seeing this, Casey intervened.

"Hey guys cool it! Look, Man vs. Wild is on. Just watch that! That way Simon can learn about surviving in the wild and Tori can admire the amazing Bear Grylls and his awesome accent."

"Fine," Tori and Simon said in unison. They switched on Man vs. Wild where Bear was building a mini hammock in the jungle and talking about eating bats. Tori moaned but kept watching. Casey walked over to Derek and me.

"Hey guys!" she said happily. "How was your tour of the house? It's awesome isn't it?"

"Uh yeah!! This place has everything!!" I said.

"I know. I was like freaking out the whole first day I was here," Casey said. "So where are you going now?"

"Gym," Derek said.

"Cool. Mind if I tag along?" Casey asked. "I love that room but no one but James will work out with me and he kind of gets annoying." A muffled "I heard that!" came from somewhere in the house. Casey laughed and rolled her eyes. "So how about it?" I looked at Derek who just shrugged.

"Sure. That's fine," I said. She said she would meet us in the gym after she changed. Derek and I walked started walking back towards the gym. We got there and started running on some of the treadmills.

"So what do you think of everybody?" Derek asked me.

"They all seem cool," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Just wanted to see what you thought of everyone and I thought I'd ask as long as no one's around."

"Okay. So what do _you _think of everybody?"

"They all seem fine like you said. No one seems like they would double cross us or anything like that. In fact some of them are kind of entertaining."

"Yeah you're right about that," I said laughing. "Who knew that a bunch of teenagers could have the maturity level of two six year olds put together."

"You're right," he said as he started laughing. That's when Casey came in. She came in and started warming up on the elliptical next to mine.

"I take it you guys saw the home theater?" she said. "Saturday is our teen movie night when we watch whatever we want because the adults aren't around. Tonight's my choice so if you guys want to come I can personally guarantee some really good ones!"

"By 'good' do you mean chick-flicks or action or horror movies that actually are good?" Derek asked.

"Action and horror! I can barely watch chick-flicks." Casey said. "Yeah I'll pick out a few of my favorites then everyone can pick out what to watch. I might throw in a few Will Ferrel movies though cause he's just so awesome." When I heard her say Will Ferrel, I remembered the dream I had about Derek last night. I started laughing hysterically as I thought more about it. Derek looked over to me.

"Chloe are you okay?" he asked. It took me a while to calm down enough to talk.

"I forgot to ask you this morning," I said. "Do you like Nickelback?"

"The band? Yeah I guess they're cool," he replied.

"Do you know their song 'Gotta' be Somebody'?" I asked still laughing.

"Yes. Why do you ask?" he said, now sounding very suspicious.

"Oh, I just had a really, really weird dream last night."

"Okay, I don't really want to know if it involves me in one of your dreams."

"Yeah, you don't. It was extraordinarily weird and there was also Will Ferrel and Johnny Depp."

"Okay just stop right there," Derek said, getting off the treadmill and walking towards the weight machines. Casey started laughing.

"I guess I'm not the only around here now who has weird dreams," she said. "Like a few nights ago for instance I had a dream that I was jumping on the trampoline with a bunch of oversized Skittles. Then last night I dreamt that Charlotte and I went to IKEA and started running around like idiots, jumping on the beds, and going the opposite way the arrows on the floor point."

"Yeah that is weird," I said, laughing again. I was beginning to like Casey. She was weird but in a way that wasn't really disturbing or creepy. She was fun to be around and she liked movies so we're probably going to get along great. She and I got off the cardio machines then and followed Derek to the weight machines. I started at one of the bicep ones while she went to the one where you have to push the bar down with your legs like you do with a recliner.

"Hey you guys want to watch some TV?" Casey said after about a minute of working on the machines.

"There's a TV in here?" I asked, amazed.

"Four actually, one on each wall so you can watch it no matter what you're doing." She got off the recliner like machine and got a remote off of one of the ellipticals. She pushed a button and a TV on each wall rose up from the floor. Wow this place is so awesome. Casey pressed another button and all four turned on. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was on. Casey seemed happy about this because she started jumping up and down and saying yay over and over. It was just at the part when the Beauxbatons people were dancing into the great hall. We watched for a while and everything was quiet until the deleted scene where everybody sings the Hogwarts school song came on. Casey started singing along with it and waving her hands like everyone in the movie did.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, Teach us something, please, Whether we be old and bald Or young with scabby knees, Our heads could do with filling With some interesting stuff, For now they're bare and full of air, Dead flies and bits of fluff, So teach us things worth knowing, Bring back what we've forgot, Just do your best, we'll do the rest, And learn until our brains all rot," she sang loudly. Derek and I both looked at her with opened mouths.

"What?" she said. "I'm a Harry Potter freak okay. I memorized the school song and even know most of the Weird Sisters' song later in this movie."

"Wow," Derek said sadly. "Just wow."

"I think that is awesome!" I said. "I love knowing all the words to movies."

"ME TOO!!" Casey screamed. "When ever my family watched a Harry Potter movie I would practically say the whole movie while it was playing. Everyone got really pissed off at me but I thought it was hilarious so I just kept saying all the lines. They usually made me leave the room after a while though."

"That is so what I would do!" I said. Casey and I talked for a while about movies and stuff we did to annoy others, with Derek adding a few comments here or there. We worked out for two hours when Casey and I decided to quit. Derek probably wasn't going to come out until we told him that there was food or the movie night was starting so we just left him there by himself. Casey said that she was going to pick out the movies she wanted so she left me for the DVD room. As much as I wanted to browse around there some more, I was tired and just wanted to sit. I went to the TV room and sat on the couch. Simon was now watching Predator but Tori had left.

"Where have you been?" he asked me. "I just had to spend like three hours with Tori and she just left when the second episode of Man vs. Wild was finished."  
"Oh I was working out with Derek and Casey," I said.

"Working out?" Simon asked. "Where at?"

"There is an awesome gym just past that back hall with the porch exit."

"Wow, I guess I'm going to have to take a tour now too. After Predator is over though." We sat on the couch and continued watching the movie.

**So what did everyone think? I know it was boring and long but I promise the next chapter will be better! Okay so there were a lot of things that actually happened in this chapter. The chipmunk and squirrel story was real and my LA teacher who Frank is based off of made it up. The dream about Casey jumping on a trampoline with a bunch of giant Skittles was true too and I had it the night after I finished typing the trampoline chapter although I was on it with Derek but that would have sounded weird if Casey dreamt about it so I didn't put it in. The dream about Casey and Charlotte wasn't true but tomorrow is my bff's (the one who Charlotte is based off of) birthday and she is going to spend most of it at IKEA because she has never been there and wants to see the "magical arrows" on the floor. Everything Casey said about Harry Potter is also something that I have done. And I do actually hate Project Runway and would so much rather watch Armageddon which I actually did watch yesterday. Sorry I'm kind of babbling. So please, please, please, please review no matter what you think! Please?! I'll update as soon as possible.**


	5. Movie night

**Hey guys! Thanks for the reviews! Sorry it took me so long to update but I got caught up in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and I was up until like after 1:00 every night from Saturday to Monday reading them and then I've had so much homework this week that I only had a few minutes to type each night. If anyone is thinking about reading The Hunger Games because of violence, like me, don't because there was practically none. By the way, for anyone who has read them, does Peeta remind you of Simon? He does to me anyway and I won't say why because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who's planning on reading it. Okay so I have to tell you all this. So Friday night I completely freaked out. Why you ask? Well because I found who I think to be the perfect Derek, in cartoon form anyway!! Actually I already knew about him but I hadn't thought of him since finishing Darkest Powers. Anyway so I was downstairs by myself until 12:30, because my parents decided not to give me an actual bedtime on the weekends for those of you who read my last author's note. I was scrolling through the good channels on the TV around 11:00 trying to find something to watch. I was flipping up when I saw that Ben 10: Alien Force was on. I have seen quite a few episodes of it and I would much rather watch it than some stupid Disney Channel show (no offense to anyone who likes them though). So while I was flipping up and seeing if anything good was on, I was thinking about turning Ben 10 back on. I was also thinking about why I liked it and why I should turn it back on. I already knew it was because of the Kevin guy who I think is awesome and would be really hot if he was real. I was still flipping when I realized that Kevin would be the perfect Derek!! I had to hold back a scream as I flipped back to Ben 10 and turned it on. It was a few seconds before Kevin actually came on screen and when he did I actually did let out a few small squeaks, which is bad when you're the only one up at 11:00 at night. He has like the perfect hair for Derek and then like the perfect height and body type. All that he needs is Ben's eyes and maybe a little deeper voice and he would be Derek! You guys should really look him up on Google images because he really is Derek and also is awesome. Just type in Kevin from Ben 10 Alien Force and you will see. Anyway, I just had to tell you guys about what I figured out and I'm sorry about this incredibly long Author's Note and chapter. I hope everyone likes this one and once again I apologize for the usual grammar/errors and any out-of-characterness. As always I don't own Darkest Powers no matter how awesome that would be.**

Chloe's POV

When Simon and I finished watching Predator and after talking about how awesome Schwarzenegger is, Simon said he wanted to takeI decided to go mess around on the computers. As I was looking at some of the games the computers had, when the Charlie guy walked in.

"'Ello Chloe!" he said happily as he sat at the computer next to me. Again I realized how awesome his accent was.

"Okay, I have to say this," I said. "Your accent is awesome." Charlie laughed.

"Thanks," he said. "I get that a lot along with all the comments about the way I pronounce some words."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Such as slippy, mosquito, and coyote," he said all the words really oddly but they were so funny that I couldn't help but laugh.

"Your pronunciation is so much better than ours," I said. We talked for a while about words that the British pronounced differently. Then he started showing me all the stupid yet hilarious YouTube videos that some of the people at the house had found. He was just starting Chubby Cuppy Cake Boy when Casey came running in.

"Is that Chubby Cuppy Cake Boy?!" she said as she sprinted towards the computer. "Yay it is!! Start it over Charlie!"

"Just let Chloe finish watching it first," Charlie said. It was a really funny video actually. The kid was awesome when he did the bunny nose thingy then the eyebrow thing at the end. Casey insisted that we watch it over and over and by the time she was finished, I had practically memorized the song. She then suggested several other videos. We watched random things for around 30 minutes. Then we started getting bored and left.

"Hey movie night is now starting in fifteen minutes," she said to Charlie and I then repeated it into one of the intercoms. As soon as she finished, there was a small stampede from upstairs. No one came down right away however, but when they did, everyone had some sort of huge bag or bar of candy. I was sort of pissed at everybody because I had nothing although I could probably take anything from the snack room. I was really annoyed when Casey passed by me with a huge 41 ounce bag of Skittles. I trudged to the home theater. A few people, including Derek and Simon, were picking up popcorn and other stuff for the movies. I joined them and got myself a big cup of Coke, a big bucket of popcorn, and a few things of candy. I looked over to Derek and Simon who had a lot more than I did. Simon had two buckets of popcorn, a large drink, a thing of nachos, and a couple of candy bars. Derek had three popcorn buckets, two large drinks, two nacho trays, a pretzel, and a whole box of candy. How could they possibly eat that all?! We already had a huge breakfast. Okay so maybe Derek could eat it all but Simon? I wouldn't be surprised if he wound up throwing everything up after the first movie.

Simon, Derek, and I left the snack room after we were finished loading up on food. We sat in the second row, with Simon in the sixth seat from the left, Derek next to him, and me next to Derek. Casey came and sat next to me after a few minutes. She had around the same amount of snacks that I took but she also had that 41 ounce bag full of Skittles. James quickly came and sat down next to her with around the same amount of food Derek took. They placed their food on a small table that ran along the back of the row of seats in front of us. The guys and I hadn't seen this when we sat down and had been trying to balance everything on our laps and the arm rests. It was really funny watching Derek try to keep everything from tipping over. I put my stuff on the table and nudged him. He looked over and saw my stuff on the table.

"Ah man. You've got to be kidding me!" he whined as he practically threw his three buckets and nachos onto the table. Simon groaned as he saw Derek putting the rest of his stuff down. As Simon put all his stuff down, I opened a bag of M&Ms. I was stuffing a couple into my mouth when Casey poked me. I turned to her. She handed me a few sheets of paper and some pens. The papers had a bunch of movie titles on them.

"Pass one down to Derek and Simon," she said. "Choose five then circle them. Tell the guys that too."

I told the guys what Casey told me and passed down the stuff. I then looked at the list. There were eight movies on it, some of them I'd never heard of. They were Talladega Nights, Avatar, 2012, the new Star Trek, The Haunting in Connecticut, Paranormal Activity, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and then Blades of Glory. I circled Talladega Nights, Avatar, 2012, Star Trek, and Paranormal Activity. I gave the sheet and pen back to Casey.

"So you weren't lying about liking Will Ferrel huh?" I asked her.

"Nope," she replied happily. "Like I said earlier, he's awesome and hilarious!" Derek poked me from my other side and handed me his and Simon's stuff. I handed them to Casey too then turned to talk to the guys.

"So what do you think about Casey's movie choices?" I asked them.

"She has really good taste for a girl," Simon said.

"I agree," Derek said. He then leaned over me to talk to Casey. "You do have awesome movie preferences."

"Thanks guys," Casey said to them. We talked a little more about movies we liked while other people picked out their movies. Then Casey had to count up everyone's votes which took a really long time. After a while though, she finally had everything figured out.

"Okay everybody!" she said. "It looks like we're going to watch Talladega Nights, The Haunting in Connecticut, Paranormal Activity, Avatar, and 2012. That leaves out Harry Potter and Blades of Glory. Now somebody pick a number between one and five."

"32!!" Kyle screamed. He was sitting next to Alex and Julie, who slapped him.

"Shut up Kyle," Julie said. "Four."  
"Okay then," Casey said. "That means we're watching 2012 first." She then got up and went into the projector room to start the movie. It was then that I thought about Tori. I looked around the theater for her and found her sitting next to Charlie in the third row. She was talking to him and seemed okay so I decided to leave her alone and turned my thoughts back to 2012. I had really wanted to see it but hadn't had time when it was in theaters. The special effects looked amazing and almost every end-of-the-world movie is really good. I was wondering how long it was when Casey finally got the projector working and one of those preview rating screens popped up. Casey came over quickly with a remote in one hand and another bucket of popcorn in the other.

"Hey how long is this movie?" I asked when she had sat back down.

"2 hours and 38 minutes!" she said happily.

"Wow that's really long," I said.

"Oh, you don't realize it at all as long as you don't look at the time," she replied. "Avatar's longer though but that one you don't even want to look at the time because you're so caught up in the action!"

"Okay then," I said as I turned back to the screen to watch the previews. There were about five then the DVD menu. Casey pressed play and the movie began. Being teenagers, we talked during the movie. James, Casey, Derek, and I talked about what we thought would actually happen when the year 2012 came around. Derek, Casey, and I all thought that everything would be just fine and there might be just another small earthquake or tsunami somewhere and everyone was just overreacting. James, on the other hand, was sure that something really, really bad would happen like the whole Australian continent would sink into the ocean. We tried to convince him otherwise until the guy in the movie took his kids to Yellowstone. Casey told us all to shut up then because the good part was starting. She started laughing hysterically when the main guy met that radio guy who asked him if he wanted a pickle and explained how he thought Yellowstone was going to blow up and he was going to broadcast until it did. Most people shut up after that part and the movie started getting really good. Casey was really into the movie and she looked like she was about to cry when that Russian pilot died, which I understand because he was really hot and a Russian. I got kind of depressed when Gordon and the Russian lady died but I didn't cry. We finished the movie and we discussed it for a while until the credits were finished. Casey said that she loved the radio guy and she kept quoting like every line he had said. I got annoyed after a while and sort of felt bad for James who couldn't complain because he'd be in big trouble otherwise. I turned away to talk to Derek and Simon and see what they thought of the movie. We talked about it until I realized that my whole bucket was empty and I saw that Derek had finished all his too.

"How could you possibly eat three buckets during one movie?" I asked him.

"I'm a 16 year old werewolf Chloe," Derek replied. I don't know why but his response seemed really funny to me and I started laughing hysterically. It wasn't until Casey had the next movie started that I calmed down and went to go get more popcorn. Derek followed me with his three buckets.

"Simon looked like he was about to puke," Derek said, clearly amused, when the door to the snack room had closed.

"I thought he might," I said laughing a little as I started walking towards the popcorn machine. "There is no way he could eat that much with the breakfast we had and not feel sick."

"Yeah that's for sure," he said as he went for another pretzel. We stocked up on food again and when we came back in, the DVD menu for Avatar had come up. I squeaked a little out of excitement and ran back towards my seat. I hadn't seen Avatar either and I had really, really wanted to because it was all special effects practically and the movie itself looked amazing. I wasn't disappointed because in the first 20 minutes, the guy already was in his avatar. No one talked during this movie because it was so actiony and awesome. When Neytiri said "You should not be here" to Jake and did the cool hand gesture, Casey freaked out again and started laughing her head off. It wasn't until they got to hometree that she calmed down and shut up. I got really into the movie when Neytiri started teaching Jake all the ways of the Na'vi. I was almost bouncing with excitement when Jake got him own birdy thing and he also became one of the tribe. Then the movie got sort of depressing when the prayer forest was destroyed. I was also like about to cry when hometree was blown up. Then it got even more actiony and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what was going to happen. I was really mad at the cliffhanger ending. Casey, Derek, James, and I talked about how awesome Avatar was and Simon eventually joined in when he seemed like he wasn't going to puke.

"Didn't you guys love it?!" Casey screamed. "It's like my favorite movie ever!"

"I know!" Derek, Simon, and I said at the same time. We all started laughing then and then calmed down.

"Yeah," Casey said. "When they were trying to blow up the tree I was like 'They're not going to kill hometree, they can't, they never do anything like that!' Then when that asshole was trying to kill Jake I was like screaming 'WHY WON'T YOU DIE ALREADY!!!!"

"Yeah me too," Simon said. We kept talking enthusiastically about Avatar until James finally reminded us that we did have three more movies to watch. We all whined a little but agreed. I had to go to the bathroom and asked Casey where it was. It turned out that it was just through the projector room so I followed Casey into it. When I came out, she was closing up the Box for Talladega Nights.

"Oh my God!" I said. "I love that movie!"

"I know!" Casey said enthusiastically. "Yet again, Will Ferrel is awesome and hilarious!" We walked back to our seats and talked about Will Ferrel. When we sat down, she opened her huge bag of Skittles and stuffed a handful into her mouth. She then handed James a sandwich bag filled with a bunch of grape Skittles, which he happily took a huge handful of.

"Why did you pick out all the grape ones?" I asked her.

"I think that they are extraordinarily disgusting and I hate them so I just pick them out and feed them to the human garbage disposal," Casey said, motioning towards James.

"Can I have some?" I asked.

"Sure," Case said and held the big bag out towards me. I took two huge handfuls and dumped them on my lap. I started eating when Casey pressed play on the menu. Talladega Nights is like the most hilarious movie ever and in the first minute, everyone was laughing. There are like so many classic lines in it. When Ricky said grace, we all started laughing hysterically yet again. After that part, I could hear Casey whispering to James "Oh baby Jesus" once every few minutes and then he would start cracking up. By the time the movie was over, all of us had probably added a year or two to our lives from all the laughing. Derek, Simon, and I repeated like all the better lines at least five times.

"You guys never saw that movie?" I asked them.

"Nope," Simon said, still laughing.

"You guys had a deprived childhood then," I said. They both started laughing at that. Casey eventually got up to start the next movie. I was kind of excited to watch some horror. While Casey started the movie, I left to get some more pop. I sat back down just as the first preview was starting. It was for New Moon.

"Oh my God!" Alex screamed. "It's Taylor Lautner! He is amazing!"

"Yeah I know!" Julie said. "He's so hot."

"Yep," Charlotte said.

"Not as hot as Tom Felton thought right Charlotte?" Casey said. Charlotte turned back to face her.

"No even compares to Tom Felton," she said happily.

"That may be a little extreme," Casey said. She looked over to James who was looking rather offended. "What?"

"Just the conversation about hot actors gets kind of annoying after a while," he said in an obviously offended voice.

"Oh shut up," Casey told him. "It's not like I would pick them over you. I'm just admiring their gorgeousness."

"Well it's still annoying," James said as he turned back towards the screen. In the row in front of us, Charlotte and Julie were now fighting over who they thought was hotter. I heard a little noise on my other side and I turned to see Derek smirking.

"Are you enjoying this Derek?" I asked him.

"Yes I am actually," he replied. "I always enjoy listening to girls fight with each other about stupid things."

"You don't have much of a life do you?" I asked him.

"Not really, no," Derek said. I laughed at him then turned back to the previews. The menu came up and it was for The Haunting in Connecticut.

"Saving the scariest for last then?" I asked Casey.

"What Paranormal Activity?" she questioned. "No I didn't think it was even a little frightening. I just want to see what it will do to Casey and Charlotte. They were terrified of even the worst horror movies."

"Yeah!" Julie said. "That's why I don't want to watch this!!"

"Be quiet," Casey told her. "I love this movie and Matt."

"What?!" Kyle/Matt said.

"The kid with cancer's name is Matt," she explained. Kyle seemed to except this and turned back towards the screen. Casey started the movie and we shut up after that. I was getting kind of annoyed for the first few minutes because nothing was happening. Then the part when Matt was sleeping and he had that first dream where the thing popped out of the mirror. Derek had actually jumped when it happened a several others, excluding me and Casey, did some other thing that people do when they're scared, such as screaming hysterically (Julie), hiding behind the person next to them (Charlotte), and then throwing popcorn up in the air (Tori). I started laughing at all these reactions, especially Derek's, along with Casey. This same thing happened about every time something "scary" happened. I let out one actual little scream of terror when Jonah, the burned-up dead guy, showed up next to the mom's bed. We finished the movie and watched all the actual pictures of the house that this had happened in, the movie is based of a true story. I was really amazed and freaked out about how the guy's cancer was completely gone after he almost died because of the ghosts. No one really talked about this movie much and almost everyone was in some sort of terror-stricken trance, including Simon. I teased Derek for a while about how he jumped a few times. He told me to shut up every time, typical Derek.

Casey started Paranormal Activity and since there were no previews or beginning credits, the "terror" began immediately. Some people's reactions to this movie were even worse than The Haunting in Connecticut. Almost everyone freaked out besides me, Casey, and Derek. We all just thought that it was hilarious to see everyone else's reaction and not the least bit frightening. There were only a few doors opening and closing by themselves, the TV turning on and off sporadically, the demon stuff, and then the lady getting dragged around the house by the thing and then turning into a demon at the end. By the end of the movie, Simon was in the fetal position on his chair rocking slowly back and forth. Derek and I were laughing hysterically at him. Neither of us were ever going to let him forget this.

Derek, Casey, and I ran around the room taking in everyone's reaction and making fun of them, not nice I know but how could we possibly miss an opportunity like this? We were really enjoying ourselves when Derek asked what time it was. Casey looked at her watch and said that it was already 11:00 and that the adults would be back soon. Apparently Claire was strict about being upstairs and in your room when it got to be past 11:30 and no one seemed ready to make her mad so we all left the theater. Everyone who had gotten freaked out by Paranormal Activity, besides Tori, Charlie and James, asked somebody to sleep in their room for the night. I found that really funny. They were acting like they were four and had some really bad nightmare. They all went up while those of us who weren't quite as scared stayed in the TV room and watched some TV and talked for a while. At around 11:45, James and Derek said that the garage door was opening. Charlie, James, and Casey all freaked out and told us to get upstairs unless we wanted to be suffocated for disobeying Claire. We followed their lead and ran upstairs and to our room. I went for my backpack at first but then remembered that I had no PJs so I just stripped down to my cami and underwear again and climbed into bed. I put one of my ear buds in and turned my iPod to low. I closed my eyes and fell asleep thinking of burned-up dead blue people.

**So what did everyone think? I know it was long and pretty boring but I hope you guys at least got some good ideas for your next movie night. I know that neither Avatar or 2012 is on DVD yet but I loved those movies and it's my story so I can do whatever I want! Everything that Casey said about the movies was what I thought as well as hating grape Skittles. My dad let us get one of those 41 ounce bags of Skittles on New Years Eve and I ate like half the bag in five hours. My friends do actually fight over who is more awesome, Tom Felton (AKA Draco Malfoy) or Taylor ****Lautner**** (do I really need to explain? By the way he was the only reason I went to see New Moon and the only reason I stayed). I personally like Tom better and think he's much hotter than Taylor (at least when they both have shirts on). I'll try to post the next chapter soon which will probably have a cute Chlerek moment! Remember to review and tell me what you think about the chapter and if you think I'm right about Kevin (see first AN in this chapter). Please be completely honest, I don't mind criticism. By the way, Chubby Cuppy Cake Boy rules!!!!! Bye!**


	6. I don't know what to call this chapter

**Aloha everyone! I would have updated sooner but my flashdrive was being freakish and wouldn't show up on any computer so I was stuck typing this chapter on our one really slow computer until I got a new one, which is awesome by the way. My mom also made me go to bed early on Friday and Sunday so I didn't get much typing in. Monday I got some done but Heroes was on and it's one of those shows where you can't miss like a second so I watched that and also an episode of Lost. Saturday I did a lot but then at 12:00 my mom made me go to bed but I wasn't tired so I stayed up until 1:30ish watching Star Trek on my iPod. Just wanted to tell you all that. There might be a little longer wait for chapters until next Tuesday because that's when Lost starts again and my mom and I are trying to watch all of Season 5 before it starts to catch up. We have like 11 episodes to finish in a week so I might have to sacrifice some typing time to watch it. Does anyone read these Author's Notes at all or do you guys just not like me? No one said anything about Kevin in any reviews at all! Come one people! Just look him up or at least tell me that you read these notes! Anyway here's the chapter and I hope you guys like it! Again I apologize for the usual and I again don't own Darkest Powers.**

I woke up suddenly after an extremely weird dream about riding one of those birdy things from Avatar then driving a race car into an Applebee's. Wow was my mind weird. I rolled over and looked at the time. It read 1:24. _Uhg_, I thought. Weren't dreams supposed to last all night? I really just wanted to sleep until a reasonable hour today. I tried to fall back asleep for about 30 minutes but finally gave up. I grabbed my iPod off the floor where it had fallen to while I slept and stuffed the earphones in. I turned the music on low again and tried falling asleep again. No success.

At 2:30, I finally decided to just go downstairs and maybe watch some TV. I slipped out of bed, pulling on my jeans as I crossed the room. I slowly opened the door and crept down the hall towards the stairs. I really hoped that I hadn't waked anyone up but the floorboards creaked a little and I banged into a wall once so it was probably a lost cause. Still I slowly climbed down the stairs and tried to feel my way towards the TV room. After a few times of running into the wall again, I finally found the entrance to the computer room. I walked through there and quickly entered the TV room. I crossed the room and turned on the TV. I pushed the volume down button until the screen came into focus and there was only a very quiet murmur of voices. I searched for the remote and found it lying in the middle of a cushion on the couch. Some infomercial was on so I went to the guide and started scrolling. I found The Mummy Returns on Syfy and turned that on. The Mummy series was one of my all time movie series ever. Especially the Mummy Returns because of the awesome little 8 year old kid named Alex who swears constantly and is really adorable. The movie had started a long type ago and it was just to the part where the pygmies run across the log holding the stick of dynamite. This scene always reminds me of the 7th Harry Potter book when all the house elves attack, with Kreature leading them screaming "For my master!!" or something like that.

I watched it for a while and realized I was getting cold. I remembered the cabinet of blankets that Derek and I had found yesterday and quickly got up to look for it. With the TV illuminating the room, it was a little easier to see but I still had trouble seeing all the way to the wall with the cabinets. I wound up running into a door of a cabinet that someone left open. The corner poked me really hard in my stomach and I bounced back, letting out a small squeak of pain. I quickly covered my mouth with my hand to stifle the sound. _Stupid cabinet, _I thought. I rubbed my stomach and reached into the cabinet to see what was in it. Luckily, it was the one with the blankets so I quickly grabbed one and pushed the door closed. Maybe with a little too much force because when it did close, it made a big _bang _that rang around the room.

"Shit," I whispered. That was bound to wake someone up. I really wanted to have some alone time, which I doubted I was going to get much of in this house now. I tip-toed back to the couch and sat down. I had chosen a big fuzzy green blanket that could easily cover three people and was supper thick. I shock it out and laid it over me. It was so warm and had a really comforting smell. I spent a few minutes watching TV and rubbing my face with the fuzzy blanket, taking in the smell of it.

"Chloe?" someone said from behind me. I jumped up and attempted to stand but I got tangled in the blanket and wound up falling to the floor. I was thrashing about and trying to get away from the blanket when someone chuckled behind me. I looked up and there was Derek, standing just behind the couch, looking down at me on the floor and grinning like an idiot. His hair was all tousled like he had just gotten out of bed which was confirmed with the fact that he was shirtless and wearing only his boxers.

"You are really mean," I told him. "You know I get scared easily yet you still insist on sneaking up on me!"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," he replied, now coming around the couch and over to me. "Need some help?"

"No," I said. I was determined to get out of this without his help. As I struggled with the blanket, Derek just stood there and looking at me with a you're-so-pathetic look. After a while, Derek just sighed and walked right up to me. He lifted me off the floor and pulled the blanket, which unraveled itself from around me instantly. Stupid werewolf super strength.

"I could have gotten it myself," I said in an annoyed voice. He handed me back the blanket.

"Yeah I'm sure," Derek said. He sat down on the couch and I followed. I tossed the blanket over me again.

"You want part of it?" I asked him, holding up part of the blanket.

"Sure," he said and took the edge I was holding and threw it over himself. He then turned his attention to the TV. "The Mummy huh?"

"The second one actually," I said. "Why are you down here Derek?"

"I woke up hearing this bang coming from downstairs and I got up to make sure the Edison Group or somebody wasn't attacking," he said simply. "What are _you_ doing down here Chloe?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Still worried about raising things?"

"No actually. Well now I will thanks to you," I said.

"I'm sorry," Derek said, he sounded really sincere and I was almost regretted saying it. "Then why did you come down here?"

"I really just couldn't sleep. I tried to fall back asleep for like an hour and then just gave up and came down here."

"Then what was that bang?"

"Oh that," I said, slightly embarrassed. "I walked into an open cabinet door and got poked and then I got mad at the cabinet and maybe pushed it a little hard."

"That sounds like you," Derek said, laughing.

"Hey!" I shouted at him. Then I remembered that it was 2 in the morning and hit my head with my hand.

"You know you loose brain cells every time you hit your head," Derek said. A classic line from the super-smart werewolf.

"Thanks for that little piece of advice," I said. We just sat there after that, watching The Mummy Returns. When it ended, some annoying infomercial for some weird cat claw filer came on and I grabbed the remote. I flipped through a couple screen then finally came across Van Helsing. I turned that on really fast because I love that movie almost as much as The Mummy. What is with all these awesome movies being on after three in the morning? The movie had only started like 30 minutes ago when I turned it on and it was almost to the part when Anna's really hot brother, Falcon or something like that, came back to their house to warn her or something like that. I was sitting there, waiting to see him climbing on the wall then ripping off his skin, when a commercial came on and I sighed, wanting to see the brother and a werewolf. Then I remembered that Derek was sitting next to me still. Since the brother was just about to turn into a werewolf, I turned to Derek to make sure he was okay with watching werewolf movies.

"Sorry," I said to him. He turned to me with a confused look on his face. "I didn't think of you when I turned this on. Does this offend you or anything?"

"What Van Helsing?" Derek said. I nodded and he started laughing. "Hell no. I love a good werewolf movie. Just sometimes the ones with both vampires and werewolves annoy me."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well werewolves always seem to loose everything against vampires, fights, their best friends, the… girl." I could see him blush a little at that last example. Since it was true, I decided to say my opinion about vampire and werewolf movies.

"I know! I mean why do vampires get everything. All they do is suck blood and kill people. Werewolves, and I'm not just saying this because you're here, are so much cooler. I mean you guys have superstrength, can change into wolves, and don't fell the need to attack you every second and suck all your blood. So all in all, werewolves are better."

"Well thanks," Derek said, clearly cheered up now.

"Like I said, I really do think werewolves are cooler and not just because you are one. Someone really needs to give werewolves a break."

"So will your first film be about werewolves creaming vampires in everything?" That made me laugh. I sat there and thought for a few seconds. I was about to say that I was going to make amovie like that but then I go a better idea.

"Well maybe that will be my second," I said. "No, my first will be our story, I think."

"Our story?" Derek asked. By "our story" I meant what happened from when I arrived at Lyle House to now. I was still forming ideas for the actual movie as I sat there.

"Well mine I guess. Starting from when I first got my powers and then ending arriving here."

"Hm… That would actually make a pretty good movie," Derek said. "Definitely something I would see."

"And not just because you're going to be in it?"

"I am?"

"Well duh," I said. "The whole movie will be about all of us. I might add a few things though. Like maybe making Tori and Simon get together because honestly, they would be really perfect to each other if they didn't hate the other so much. Don't you dare tell Simon that though."

"Don't worry," Derek said. "I actually think the same thing. So you said a few things would be added. What else were you thinking of adding?" I blushed then, because of one of the other changes I was going to make.

"Maybe add another encounter with Ramon and Liam to put in a little more action. Then, well. I was uh… sort of thinking to get mine and your character to fall for each other too. Just to give werewolves a break and since Tori and Simon's would already be together, that leaves mine. I'm not saying that we should like start dating or anything in real life. Just a little something to make the movie more interesting," I said all this in a rush, trying to explain everything fast so Derek wouldn't think that I like liked him or anything.

"Oh…," he said. "That uh… actually makes sense. For the movie I mean." We both sat there uncomfortably for a while. Then the commercial was over and Falcon, or whatever his name is, showed up. I watched him come up behind Anna and her freak out from seeing him. Then I started laughing when he started changing into a werewolf and ripping off his skin, now knowing that that was nowhere near what actually happened. I thought about asking Derek when he was going to Change next but he probably had no idea himself and that probably wouldn't be the best conversation re-starter so I just simply said:

"Now I think this movie is really cheesy. That is no where near what actually happens."

"I know," Derek said. He seemed happy that we were talking about something else now and gladly joined in. "When I saw this movie, I asked my dad what would actually happened when I Changed and he just said 'not that.' That really didn't convince me so for the next few weeks I had nightmares about pulling my skin off and becoming a werewolf."

"Oh," I said. "Poor Derek. You had bad dreams because of Van Helsing."

"Well you weren't a 12 year old kid who barely knew what he was," Derek said, now a little annoyed.

"Actually I was a 12 year old kid who never even knew that she had any sort of power. But I guess that having no idea is better than just knowing the smallest amount you could."

"Yup," Derek said. "So about your movie about of yours. Who did you plan on playing me?"

"Hmm… I don't know. I didn't really think about people who would play us. Maybe…" I started listing some actors who sort of fit Derek's appearance.

When the movie finished, another stupid infomercial came on and this time Derek grabbed the remote and started flipping. It was now around 5:00 in the morning and the only things on were the infomercials, the news, and little kid shows. I suggested that we turn Oobi on but Derek just laughed and kept flipping. I was really tired and neither of us really wanted to watch stuff about weird cat toys, the weather, or a show about hands with eyeballs so we decided to try and get some more sleep. When we got up, I saw Derek standing there with only his boxers and blushed. I had just spent like three hours sharing a blanket with a half-naked guy and I had completely forgotten that he was half-naked. Whoops. He went over to turn off the TV as I went to put the blanket away. When I turned around, he was walking back over to me. I somehow wound up staring at his muscular chest. It looked _really_ good when he wasn't covered in sweat and all the muscles were spazzing out. I was still staring at him when he had walked right up next to me. I shook my head, trying to tear my eyes away from him. I was thankful that it was dark so he couldn't see exactly where they had been staring.

"Chloe?" he asked. _Shit_, I thought, he did see me staring didn't he? Stupid werewolf night vision. "Are you okay? You're sort of spacing out." Phew.

"Oh… Yeah I'm fine. You want to go up now?"

"Sure," Derek said. We walked in silence until we reached our rooms.

"Derek," I said.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry for waking you up. I know that you especially need some sleep so I'm sorry." Derek looked away from his doorknob and met my eyes.

"Don't worry about it Chloe. It's okay. I wasn't all that tired anyway and I like spending time with you." I was so surprised at the last thing he said. I started getting this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and I smiled.

"Same here," I said. "Well, good night Derek."

"Good night Chloe." Then he disappeared into his room. I slowly opened the door to my room and stepped in. I pulled off my jeans and climbed back into bed.

Sleep did not come as easily as I expected it to however, because I kept thinking about Derek. When I thought of making mine and his character a couple in my movie, I had really just meant it to put a little more drama into the whole thing. Now though, I wasn't so sure. That feeling I got just now made me think that maybe I was starting to think of Derek as maybe more than a friend. Maybe that though of making the pretend us fall for each other was some sign from my subconscious mind to use to convince me that I did like him. I had always liked him but just as a friend, nothing more. Why was I now all of a sudden thinking that I liked him? Then I remembered that similar feeling that I got when our eyes met right after his last Change. Maybe it wasn't so sudden. Maybe I have liked him for a while and just never noticed it. I did so not need this in my life right now, it was already too complicated. I rolled over and tried to sleep but my mind kept trying to make me think of Derek. I eventually fell asleep but still couldn't take my mind off of him.

**Aww. Wasn't that sweet? Yeah I know, not one of my best chapters and I did a really bad job of explaining Chloe's feelings. But it was Chlereky and at least sort of cute right? Oh well, I tried. So who likes Van Helsing? Please at least tell me if you have seen it! I love Hugh Jackman and all the movies I have seen him in, which is really only the X-Men movies (btw, I think that Gambit in Wolverine is really hot, if you don't know him, look him up right now) and Van Helsing but so what? Yeah and I looked up the brother in Van Helsing and it turns out that his name is actually spelled ****Velkan but it sounds like Falcon so I just put that in the story. So tell me what you guys think about this chapter PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!! Also if you decide to be nice go ahead and look up Kevin from Ben 10 too and tell me what you think of him as Derek. Also if you want to make me happy, tell me if you read these Author's Notes. So again review and at least two people have to tell me what they thought of Van Helsing (or if say if you haven't seen it) or Kevin before I post my next chapter. It will probably be in Derek's POV so maybe that will make reviews come faster. Bye!! P.S. Who else is watching American Idol? Me! I posted this as I am watching it. Bye again!!!**


	7. Simon is a spaz

**What's up people?! How are you? Sorry I spazzed out in my Author's Notes last chapter. I was just in a bad mood when I wrote them and I just sort of took out my anger in them. I realized just after I posted the chapter that I sounded really rude in them and I'm sorry about that. Thanks to those who reviewed and said stuff about my notes. You guys rock. Thanks to ****burning.. who said something about Kevin and that the guy who plays Gambit is Canadian, go Canadians!! ****Death Preistess, I have no idea if I'm going to see Wolfman, it looks like an okay movie (especially the part when the guy's hand starts mutating) and it looks like it's going to be especially violent and gory (some of my favorite parts of movies, not right I know but I still love it!) so maybe I'll see it if my mom will let my dad take me. ****So sorry again for my rudeness and I also apologize for this long wait but I had some writer's block and had a lot of homework and like I said last chapter, I'd been watching the last season of Lost to catch up before the season 6 premier. I kept staring at Josh Holloway's (AKA Sawyer) awesome hair like every time he came on screen. He's like one of my top five favorite actors ever and I think he's extraordinarily hot and gorgeous, even if he is like 40. The final season started last night and I'm so freakin' happy about it. Every time a commercial for Lost comes up, I start screaming, jumping up and down, and pointing at the screen and screaming "Lost, Lost, Lost, Lost, Lost!!!!" It really annoys my family but that's the best part! So I'll get to the chapter now and I hope you guys like it. Sorry for any spelling/grammar issues and anything that seems out of character. Yet again I don't own Darkest Powers.**

Derek's POV (right after he closed his bedroom door and left Chloe in the hallway)

I lay in bed, with my eyes open and staring at the ceiling. I had been mentally kicking myself over and over since I left Chloe in the hallway. I liked her, I had been trying to deny that fact for quite some time but now I had to admit it. _What the hell are you thinking Derek?_ I thought. _She definitely doesn't like you and Simon is head over heels for her. _I knew Simon liked her, even though he'd never actually told me, but when you're holding someone's hand like every two minutes, it's pretty obvious. Actually it had been getting a bit annoying. He would probably be pissed if he found out that I liked Chloe, even if we are brothers, and I could never make Simon upset.

I wasn't so sure about what Chloe felt for him though. She seemed to happily except all his hand holding and they spent a lot of time talking. But did she actually like him in any way more than a friend? I was sure she had until just now when we were downstairs. She easily could have made Simon and her character a couple but she had put him with Tori, which I really did agree with. She had instead chosen to make _mine_ and her's fall for each other. What was that about? Why would she ever choose me over Simon? That really stumped me.

I spent a while tossing and turning in bed, trying to go back asleep and also sort out the Chloe thing. Eventually I fell into a restless sleep and dreaming of teaming up with Hugh Jackman and Brendan Fraser to fight a vampire mummy. Wow was my mind weird. **(AN: For those of you who don't know, Hugh Jackman is Van Helsing and Brendan Fraser**

I awoke suddenly to sound of a shower running. Uhg, sometimes super hearing was extremely annoying. I flipped over onto my side to see what time it was. 10:30. Well that was better than the 6:30 I woke up to yesterday, although then there was a mountain of food downstairs. I jumped out of bed at the thought of food. I quickly pulled on my jeans and a shirt, then headed out of my room and to the stairs.

When I reached the TV room, I found mostly everyone in the house either there or in the kitchen. The people in the TV room, including Simon and Chloe, were watching some movie. There were a bunch of grown men playing dodge ball against some Girl Scouts. I stood there and watched for a couple of seconds before Simon turned around and saw me.

"Hey, bro," he said. "You actually slept in this morning. Don't worry we left you some food."

"Thanks," I said. "What movie is this?" Casey and Chloe whipped their heads and looked at me with an astonished look on their faces.

"You're kidding right?" Casey said in a very serious tone.

"Umm… No. Why what is it?" I said, now really confused.

"Poor, poor Derek," Casey said. "This is a movie called Dodgeball that is extremely hilarious in a very stupid way."

"Wow, Derek," Chloe said. "You really did have a deprived childhood."

"Well I'm sorry that I haven't seen every movie out there," I said.

"Well this is one of the best ever," Casey said. She put her hand in front of her face and made an "L" with her finger and thumb.

"Hey!" I exclaimed.

"Relax, it stands for love!" she stated. For some reason everyone started laughing and I got even more confused. I resumed following the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen.

When I entered the kitchen, I turned to where the food had been yesterday. There was still a lot of pancakes and eggs so I grabbed two plate of each and some milk and walked over towards the table. Miles and Frank were sitting on one end, talking a little and occasionally glancing at the TV. Kyle and Alex were sitting at the other end, fighting over the last piece of toast. I sat down closer to the fighting siblings because there was a better view of the TV from there. After a few seconds though, I realized that was a mistake, because once Alex won the war over toast, Kyle turned to me.

"Why hello Derek!" he said extremely loudly, making my ears ring a little. "How are you liking it here?"

"Well it was just dandy until about two seconds ago," I said, rubbing my ears. Alex laughed.

"Better get used to it," she said. "Kyle is always a huge pain in the ass."

"I am most certainly not!" Kyle exclaimed. "Right Miles?"

"No you are Kyle, everyone knows it," Miles replied, not even looking up at him from the TV.

"Come on Frank!" Kyle went on. "Give a guy some help here!"

"Can't Kyle," Frank said, also not turning away from the TV. "I agree with Miles here."

"Well thanks for the help guys," Kyle said. He turned back to me and Alex, clearly defeated.

"Told you," Alex said to him. They started yelling at each other after that and I resumed eating my breakfast. Once I finished, I put my dishes in the sink and walked into the TV room. The movie was now to the part when White goes to Kate's house and she makes him "bleed his own blood." I walked around the couch and sat down next to Chloe. She turned to me.

"Hey," she said smiling. She looked really cute when she smiled.

"Hey," I said, not knowing what else to say. After a bit of thought I added, "So more movies?"

"I only got up like 20 minutes before you did and it was on already so shut up." Simon seemed to have heard us talking because he leaned over Chloe to look at me.

"What do you mean more movies?" he asked. I was about to reply but Chloe beat me to it.

"Oh," she said. "Well I couldn't sleep last night so I came down here and turned on the TV. Then I went to get a blanket and sort of slammed the cabinet door and that woke Derek up and he came down to make sure no one was attacking us. Then he stayed with me and we watched The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing."

"What?!" screamed Simon. Everyone turned to look at him but he didn't notice. "You guys watched The Mummy and Van Helsing without me?! I love those movies!"

"Simon calm down," I said, trying to stifle a laugh. "It's not our fault that there were some awesome movies on last night."

"Well you guys suck for not waking me."

"Well I'm sorry Simon," Chloe said. "I didn't really consider waking anyone when it was 2:30 in the morning!"

"Still!" Simon said, turning away from us and glaring daggers at Vince Vaughn. Chloe turned to me and looked like she was going to burst out laughing any second. Seeing her face, I let out a small laugh. Simon's head snapped to me and he glared. I decided to leave the room before he got really pissed.

I got up and headed towards the porch and fresh air. It wasn't until I was in the back hallway that I felt someone following me. I turned around and found Chloe walking behind me. She looked up from the ground and to my face. Then she started laughing hysterically. I started laughing just as hard and quickly motioned her out onto the porch where Simon couldn't hear us. Once we were out, I closed the door and Chloe and I collapsed onto the porch swing just outside the door, still laughing.

"Did… you see… his face?!" Chloe got out between laughs.

"Yeah… I've never… seen him… so mad!!" I said through my laughs. We just sat there laughing for a couple of minutes and when we finally calmed down though, Tori came walking outside.

"Why the hell is Simon sitting there and looking like he's about to murder Ben Stiller?" she asked. That just made Chloe and I laugh even harder. Tori looked at us like we were crazy and sat down on one of the patio chairs as she waited for us to stop. Eventually we did and could talk again.

"He's mad that we watched some movies without him last night, or this morning actually," Chloe said.

"You and wolf boy watched movies together?" Tori said sounding astonished. Chloe blushed a little and I realized what Tori thought she had meant.

"No, well not the way your thinking of," she said the told her what had happened last night, or morning whatever it was, and how Simon on had reacted. When she heard what Simon did, she burst into laughter and couldn't stop. This time Chloe and I just sat there watching her crack up. Then Chloe got up and started walking towards the trampoline. I followed her because Tori as sort of starting to creep me out with her hysterical cackling and I really did have fun on it yesterday. We got onto it and started jumping again. It felt really good to have some fun again and also to be with Chloe. We spent like ten minutes just messing around I realized that the hysterical laughing had stopped. I looked over to the swing and found only the chair Tori had been sitting in.

"Where did Tori go?" I asked. Chloe jumped over to me and also looked at the swing.

"Dunno," she said. "But I want to explore some more of the yard. Care to join me?"

"Sure," I replied. We climbed off the trampoline and started walking towards the big willow. There were a couple of tire swings and ropes hanging from it that I hadn't noticed earlier. Chloe immediately jumped onto a tire and started swinging. After a while, she started spinning around and couldn't stop.

"Derek, help!" she said. I ran over to her and grabbed the rope. She stopped spinning and got off the tire. She immediately started stumbling and started falling. I caught her before she could touch the ground though and quickly set her back into a standing position. She started wobbling again but this time just grabbed onto me arm.

"Remind me to never do that again," she said, holding her head with her other hand.

"Okay," was all I said because her hand on my arm was really distracting. After a while she steadied herself and let go of me. Then she turned to the tire swing and kicked it.

"Stupid swing," she muttered. The she turned back to me. "Can we leave here? I'm holding a grudge against this tree now."

"Sure," I said laughing. We then started walking over to the garage. One of the three doors was open so we peaked in there. There wasn't much in it, for a garage that is. There were just three cars, two mini-vans and one SUV, some shovels up against one wall, and then the garbage and recycling bins. Chloe immediately lost interest and turned around.

"Where does that go?" she said. I turned away from the garage and to her. She was pointing towards a part of the driveway that led into the forest that I hadn't seen when we came over here. She then started walking down the road. I started running after her, my protective instinct kicking in.

"Chloe!" I yelled. "I don't think running into the forest is such a good idea!"

"Come on Derek!" she said as she turned back towards me, now walking backwards. "Have a little fun! The driveway leads down here so it can't be anything bad." I sighed and knew that there would be no way she would turn around now so I just followed.

After a minute or two of walking, the road led into another big clearing that held two fairly large buildings. One was made of glass while the other looked like a huge garage. Chloe headed towards the glass building first and I followed. She opened the door and we went inside. I immediately took in the slide, diving board and inflatables and knew that this was a pool house. Chloe seemed to realize this as well.

"This place a pool too? It really does have everything!" she exclaimed before walking further in. We walked around the place for a while but didn't find anything interesting so we left. Then we headed over to other building.

When we went in, we found that it really was a huge garage. There were two sitting lawn mowers, four ATVs, a bunch of yard and power tools, some rakes and shovels on hanging on one wall, gardening equipment, car batteries, and a just about anything else you could ever need around the house or yard. I started walking around the room looking at various things. Chloe did the same but seemed to loose interest pretty quickly. I saw this and walked over to her.

"Want to go back to the house now?" I asked her.

"Um… yeah I guess," she said. We left he big garage and started back towards the house. Then she started talking again. "So I suppose we need to get some swim suits then."

"Yeah," I replied. "I wonder when we can go get some new stuff."

"I know. I really need some more clothes. All I have are these jeans and a few shirts. Although I probably won't be able to pick anything out myself." I took me a while to figure out that she was referring tot the fact that there was a half a million dollars for finding her.

"Well I probably won't either," I said. "I supposedly kidnapped you remember?"

"Oh yeah," Chloe said, now laughing. "We'll probably be stuck here all by ourselves while everyone else goes and looks at clothes and food and stuff."

"Probably," I said. The thought of having the house empty besides her and me made me really happy but I quickly shook it off. We talked some more about random stuff until we reached the porch. We went in and immediately heard the loud laughter coming from the TV room. We walked over there and stopped at the doorway. There was some really weird stuff going on in there.

**So what did everyone think? Not a very good chapter I know and it was pretty boring. Is anyone excited to see what's happening in the TV room? I know Simon was really OOC but he was just jealous of all the time Derek spends with Chloe and he liked the movies so he over reacted. I know I probably did a bad job of explaining Derek's feeling for Chloe too but I spent literally like two hours trying to word it just right but I couldn't so I did my best. I had a little obsession over Dodgeball over the weekend so that's why I put it in here. So I have a couple of questions for you guys. First, has anyone seen Legion or Extraordinary Measures? Legion looks really good and a kind of movie that I would see and I sort of want to see Extraordinary Measures just because it has Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford, some more of my favorite actors. So please tell me what you thought of those movies if you have seen them. Second, who else is really excited about The Lightning Thief movie that comes out next Friday? I am! It actually looks like it might be better than the book plus the guy who plays Percy is pretty cute. My next question is most important though, for me anyway. We have to do this book project in LA and I need some historical fiction book suggestions. PLEASE help me here! I have no idea what to start reading and I hate historical fiction so I usually pick the really bad ones about crappy things. So PLEASE, if you have read any good historical fiction books then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me what is in a review. Also, I want to know when you think I should make Derek and Chloe confess their love for each other. I was thinking pretty soon, like three days and probably a few more chapters, but please tell me if you have an opinion. If you guys are feeling really nice today, review this chapter as well! So this incredibly long Author's Note is now finished so… BYE!!!**


	8. We'll settle this with Mario Kart!

**Hi again people! Thanks for all the reviews and book suggestions. I'm still not sure what I'm going to choose so please keep telling me of any historical fiction books that you liked. I'm really happy right now because I saw Avatar **_**again**_** last night. I still found the movie amazing and I laughed through the whole huge battle at the end, all the deaths are awesome, well except Trudy, Grace, and Tsu'tey. I almost cried this time. I also have been eating handfuls of Hershey Kisses. I went to WalMart with my dad a few days ago to get Surrogates (Really bad movie and don't see it if you haven't already) from the Redbox and also to get snacks and I found this 40 ounce bag of Kisses. My dad lets me get almost anything when we go to the store so I got them and have been eating chocolate ever since. Okay I'll get to this not very exciting chapter now and I apologize for the usual and I don't own Darkest Powers.**

Chloe's POV

Derek and I walked to the doorway that led into the TV room and stopped. There were a bunch of weird things going on in there. Charlie, Jacob, and Casey were reenacting the scenes from Dodgeball and the current one was when he guys were all learning how to play from Patches. Jacob and Casey were pretending to be cars while Charlie was trying to dodge them, pretending to be the fat guy with glasses. Casey ran into him really hard and he fell, then got up and proclaimed "I'm okay, I'm okay," before getting knocked down again by Jacob. Julie and Charlotte looked like they were having a pretend cat fight and were waving their hands like they were trying to claw each other. Tori and Simon were fighting over the remote _again_ and using knock-back spells on each other to try to get to it. Alex and Kyle were arguing over something else yet again and kept making pillows smack into the other. James was just leaning against one of the walls, watching everyone with an amused look on his face. I looked up at Derek who had the same look on his face as James did. Derek started walking over to him and I followed.

"What are they all doing?" Derek asked as he leaned against the same wall as James.

"Acting like seven year olds," James said. "I would usually have joined in by now but everyone is fighting besides the movie freaks." He pointed towards Casey, Charlie, and Jake who were now doing the part where White and the Cobras come into the bar to show off their team to the Joes. "I only do that for my favorite movies."

"Hey!" I said. "There's movie freak right here!" James looked from me to Derek to see if I was serious.

"Oh she is," Derek said. "She went to film school before she got caught up in all of this."

"Wow, well in that case, sorry Chloe."

"No prob. So how long are they all going to be doing this?"

"Well Casey, Charlie, and Jake will probably be acting out scenes for another few minutes then they'll switch movies. Julie and Charlotte will probably fall over laughing any second. Kyle and Alex will stop arguing pretty soon but then start again in like five minutes. And I have no idea what Simon and Tori will do."

"They'll probably fight until someone breaks it up, then Tori will start sulking at being defeated and Simon will get over it in two seconds."

"They fight often?" James asked.

"Well sort of I guess," I said. "They had to spend two days alone with each other and that apparently didn't go well. Now they won't stop bickering."

"Sounds Alex and Kyle," James said. "Looks like they moved onto something else now." We all looked over to the fighting siblings. They now seemed to be yelling about how their dog had liked them better than the other. They screamed at each other for a few minutes until Alex shouted:

"We'll settle this with Mario Kart!"

"Fine!" Kyle yelled back then started walking towards a door by the entrance to the computer room. He opened it and I could see stairs leading down. He disappeared into the gloom while Alex turned on the light and followed him down.

"What's down there?" I asked James.

"You haven't seen it?" he asked surprised. I shock my head and a mischievous smile appeared on his face. "Why don't you go down and see then?" I looked at the stairs, then back to James, then to Derek.

"Will you come with?" I asked him. I really had been enjoying spending all this time with him and wanted to continue it. Especially with my weird feelings that I still hadn't quite figured out yet. "I don't really trust anyone with that kind of smile on there face."

"Yeah I don't either," Derek said, a normal smile forming across his lips. We cautiously walked over to the stairs and followed them down. As soon as we rounded the corner, my jaw dropped. Before us was an entire basement filled with arcade games and at one end, a huge TV with a long straight couch facing it. The TV was apparently used for video games because all around it sat boxes and boxes of games and all sorts of remotes and controllers.

"God," Derek said. "What does this place not have?"

"A rollercoaster sadly," Casey said as she came down the stairs from behind us, James following her. "You guys want to play after Kyle and Alex have their little Mario Kart duel?"

"I don't know how to play," I said. Derek nodded next to me and Casey looked at us with a sad look on her face.

"Wow guys. This is one of the skills every teenager should have. Come on then, I'll teach you." She and James started walking towards the TV where Kyle and Alex had already started a balloon battle. Derek looked down at me.

"Is she serious?" he asked.

"I think so," I replied. "Come on, it could be fun."

"Fine." We had almost taken a step when Simon came down.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed. "This is awesome! Hey Mario Kart!" He then ran over to the couch and started asking everyone if he could play. I let out a small sigh and started walking again. It took Alex and Kyle a while to finish their battle, with Alex winning again and Kyle being a sore loser. He even threw the remote at her after she won but she dodged it at the last second. The Kyle stomped back up the stairs like a two year old.

"Yay!" Casey said after Kyle had disappeared up the stairs. "Our turn now!" Alex handed her the main remote and Casey got off the twins' profile thingy and onto hers. She had apparently unlocked every level because all the little boxes were gold. "So who wants to play first? I call one then three other peoples can play."

"ME!" Simon screamed. "And can we do team racing? Then I call being on Chloe's team!"

"Who said I was playing?" I asked.

"I did and you are so take a remote," Simon said. Casey tossed both Simon and I a remote the looked at Derek questionably.

"What the hell," he said, holding out his hand. Casey tossed him the last remote and went onto the screen that let you add them. After we all were added, she flipped screens to let us pick characters. Immediately, she picked Baby Luigi and Simon picked Diddy Kong. Derek and I didn't know how to highlight different people so we just sat there until Casey explained. I choose Toadette because she looked cute and Derek decided on Dry Bowser, who I thought was really creepy. Then we picked our teams and vehicles and started racing.

Simon and I were on the red team and Casey and Derek were on the blue team. Both Simon and Casey knew how to play and explained to Derek and I how to control the cars or bikes. Casey choose "easy" tracks but I still failed miserably. Either Derek or I were always in last place and the other was in 11th while Casey was always in first and Simon in the 2nd thru 5th range. How could they be so good at this? We played a couple of full games before I finally got fed up with being so bad. I just through the remote down on the couch and crossed my arms. Casey, who had already finished her third lap while I was still on my first and in last place, picked up my discarded remote and started racing for me. My jaw dropped again when she finished in 6th place.

"How did you do that?" I yelled at her.

"I'm just really good at this game," she said simply. "Does anyone mind if I play a game by myself for a while?"

"No," we all said. Simon immediately got up and started looking around at the arcade games. I followed him. I was about to see how you started skee-ball when the Indiana Jones theme song started blaring form the TV. I spun around and saw Casey grinning evilly with a remote on her hand and pressing the start button on the screen that said Indian Jones and the Staff of Kings.

"What are you playing?" Derek, who was still sitting on the couch, asked her.

"Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, duh!" Casey said happily. She turned around to look at him and said, "What?"

"Why are you playing Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings?" Derek asked.

"Because it's fun and violent!" she screamed at him. Then she turned back to the screen and started the game. I watched her play for a few minutes. After only two, she had probably knocked out or killed over 30 people, cackling hysterically and jumping up and down every time she did. I looked over to Simon who was staring at her with a really weird and amused look on his face.

"She really seems to enjoy violence," he said before turning back to the games. I went back to investigating the skee-ball machine and still couldn't figure out how to start it.

"Hey James!" I yelled.

"What?" he said from the couch.

"How do you start this thing?"

"Grab one of those cards from the shelf and push it in the slot."

"What shelf?" I said, looking around. Then I saw it by the stairs and shouted, "Never mind!" I quickly ran over to the shelf and grabbed two cards. I tossed one over to Simon who didn't see it coming and it wound up hitting him in the forehead. I could hear Derek laughing from over by the couch.

"OW!" he screamed, rubbing the place where the card had hit him and bending over to pick it up.

"Hey it's not my fault you can't catch," I said, walking back to the skee-ball game. I shoved the card into a little slot in the side and pressed the start button. All the balls rolled down and I picked one up. I then rolled it up to the little bucket things and got a 10. I did it another time. 10. I tried three more times and got 10's again.

"Come on!" I yelled. I pressed the start button again and the balls rolled down. I threw them all and got just more 10's. "Uhg! This game is defective!"

"No it's not," Simon said, walking up behind me. "You just suck really badly."

"Oh thanks for the encouragement," I said. "Why don't you try it and see how good you are!"

"Okay," he said walking over to the machine and pressing start. He picked up a ball and threw it. It landed in the 100 bucket. "How did you do that?!"

"I've spent a lot of time in arcades. Want me to teach you how to actually score some points?" I was about to say no but then I saw the excited look on his face and I just couldn't.

"Sure," I said, smiling.

"Yay! Okay so first…" We spent about 15 minutes trying to perfect my skee-ball skills. Simon was really patient and kept trying to show me how to get to 100 but I still only made 10's. Eventually I just gave up again and threw one of the balls across the room. It hit Derek, who was just getting off the couch.

"You really should stop throwing things, Chloe. Someone could actually get hurt," he said, throwing the ball back to me. I thankfully caught it and put it back into the ball dispenser. Suddenly, Casey freaked out.

"You stupid asshole!! You killed me! God just hurry up, I don't care about your stupid hat!" she screamed. Derek, Simon, and I all turned around to find her fuming on the couch, looking like she wanted to kill someone. The screen currently showed Indy picking his hat up off the ground. Then the actual game started again and Casey was furiously punching all the bad guys, letting out occasional swears and very ride insults at the virtual people. She died about two minutes later and then shut off the game. She looked at her watch and let out a little scream.

"It's already 2:30! Time for some Hide and Go Seek!!" Casey yelled as she ran for the stairs. she turned her head to look at us. "You guys want to play? It's really, really fun!" I looked to the guys to see what they were going to do. Simon was smiling like a idiot and looked like he really did want to play while Derek just looked amused.

"YES!" Simon screamed running towards the stairs with Casey. James and Alex left the couch and started to follow them. James looked at me and Derek.

"It actually is a lot of fun," James said. "Especially when certain people are it. We hide anywhere on the property and it sometimes takes a few hours to finish a round."

"Fine I'm in," I said as I followed James and Alex towards the stairs. "Coming Derek?"

"I guess," he said and followed me. By the time we had got up the stairs, Casey had already assembled every teen in the house and they were all standing around the couch.

"Well this should be fun," Derek muttered.

**Hide and Go Seek! Yay! I love that game! You'll get to see what everyone does next chapter. So please tell me what you thought of the chapter and also feel free to answer any of my previous questions plus this new one. Who wants to hear a story involving my dad, Canadians, and doughnuts? It's not very nice but hilarious. Yup so I think that's about it. Sorry about the boring chapter and I'll try to post the next one soon. Wow, I actually made some short Author's Notes this chapter! Bye peoples!**


	9. Hide and Seek

**Okay guys, I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so sorry that I haven't updated in two weeks. The first week I was just really busy and had lots of homework so I don't really have time to type any. The second week though I started reading The Mortal Instruments and I became obsessed, I sill am actually. I'm like two thirds done with the second book right now and all I've done for the past few days is do math homework, sit on the couch and read almost without breaks until 10:00, then go upstairs and read in bed sometimes until 1:30 in the morning. I completely forgot about like four homework assignments because I was so excited to read and if it weren't for study hall, I would probably be dead and I'm also neglecting two big projects that are due on Friday and next Monday so I'll probably fail those. I had to practically lock the book up to come type this now so be thankful that you get this chapter now instead of when I finish the third book. I also feel really bad right now because I think that Derek might no longer be my favorite fictional character anymore. I absolutely LOVE Jace, who is like my dream guy and is the only person in a book that has ever made me laugh out loud, in Mortal Instruments and I think he really might have replaced Derek. Okay so this Sunday, also Valentines Day, it was my friend's birthday and she had a sleepover where we played hide-and-seek for like four hours and guess what I got her! The Summoning! Me and one of my other friends had been trying to convince her to read it for weeks so I finally just got it for her along with some Lindor truffles. So on Wednesday during gym I asked her if she started it and she said yes but… she wasn't going to finish it! Apparently she doesn't like books with supernatural people in them (crazy person) and I got so pissed off at her. The only good thing was that even only half way through the book, she loved Derek and thought he was better than Simon. I was still pretty upset with her though and still kind of am. Oh! Who else saw The Lightning Thief?! I saw it the Friday it came out and then the next Monday and loved that movie so much, much better than the book which I really didn't think was all that great in the first place. For any of you who don't want to see it, go anyway. Percy is hot, Grover is hilarious, and Luke is both hot and hilarious (why did he have to be evil?!). Anybody who did see it please tell me what you thought of the movie! Anyway, here's the chapter and I'm sorry again for the long wait and the usual grammar/spelling errors and I don't own Darkest Powers.**

Casey had us all sit down on the couch while she explained the rules, which apparently changed every game. I sat down between Derek and Simon and looked up to Casey.

"Okay, so for those of you who don't know," she started. Everyone besides me, Derek, Simon, and Tori groaned. "I am the official master of Hide-and-Seek. I am the one who chooses the rules and also where you can hide. Let's see… Today we'll play on the entire property so the boundary lines are the fence. The bedrooms are completely off limits for this round so don't go in them. Everyone but the werewolves can only use their powers for two minutes total and I will know if you go over. No going anywhere where the person seeking can't get to you, James, and you have to hide alone. Um… no employing the help of others, especially others with super hearing. The person who is seeking has to find everyone on their own. Once I find you, you have to go right back here and sit on one of the couches until everyone is found. Get it? Got it? Good. You have three minutes to find somewhere to hide. GO!"

Everyone ran out of the room besides Casey who was counting. I decided to go hide upstairs. Jake, Julie, and Simon were thinking the same thing. Simon smiled and waited up for me before heading up the stairs.

"This is so much fun!" he said happily. "Don't you think?"

"I don't know," I replied. We were now climbing the stairs. "The last time I played Hide-and-Seek was probably in like 5th grade so right now I'm thinking this is just stupid and childish."

"That's the beauty of it! And it actually is a lot of fun even when you're above the age of 12."

"Sure it is," I said sarcastically. Simon and I split up once we reached the top of the stairs. I started walking around the hallway, looking into random rooms to try to find somewhere to hide. Then I heard Casey's voice on the intercom.

"One more minute!" she said. _Crap_ I thought. There's no where up here to hide. I went over and kicked the wall with frustration. Then I looked up and saw a yellow ropey thing hanging from a crack in the ceiling. Attic! Perfect, if I could only reach the rope. I tried jumping up to get it without success. I kept trying and then Casey's voice came over the intercom again. "30 seconds!" _Uhg_! I tried jumping even more furiously after that. I was in mid jump when I suddenly felt two hands grab my waist and hold me up in the air. I screamed with terror and looked down to see who had grabbed me. There was Derek, looking up at my face and grinning like an idiot.

"Need some help?" he asked.

"Well, now that you're asking," I said. My head was now only a few inches from the ceiling and I could easily reach the rope. I pulled it and a section of the ceiling flipped out and a wooden stair case came down. Derek put me down and I quickly ran up the stairs. Then Casey announced that there were only ten seconds left. I realized that Derek wasn't following me and was just standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Come on! There isn't enough time for you to find any other places," I said. Derek sighed and came up after me. I started looking around for a chain for a light or something but couldn't find anything. Then, just as Derek was coming into the attic, I found the bottom of a string dangling right in front of my face I flinched away from it and Derek saw it. He started laughing as he pulled up the stairs. I blushed and pulled the string. The entire attic lit up then and I blinked from the brightness. Before I could focus on the room, I heard Casey announce "ready or not, here I come" through the small crack that was still open in the floor. Derek then shut it completely and turned towards me.

"We don't have to hide right away, I'll hear her if she tires to pull down the stairs. Find a place you can get to quickly though," Derek said.

"Okay," I said. I turned away from Derek and looked around the room. It was a HUGE attic, although this was a huge house. I guessed it was around the same size as the entire 2nd floor. It had apparently replaced the house's basement as the junk storage area because the whole room was stuffed with junk. There was everything from an old dish washer to a little kids' slide. I walked around for a while until a find a perfect spot right between a table on its side and a huge pile of tarps. I crawled around the table and pulled a tarp over most of my body so only my eyes and nose were showing. I wasn't quite sure if I was obvious or not so I yelled, "Derek! Come find me. I need to know if this is an obvious spot or not. And no sniffing!"

"Coming!" Derek yelled, sounding a little muffled. It took a few minutes for him to come close enough for me to see him. He was scanning the spaces right around him, looking basically everywhere I could fit. He was looking really stupid though, because he had followed my no-sniffing rule and was holding his nose shut. I had to stifle a laugh when I saw him. He apparently didn't notice me from the 20 or so feet that stood between us so I was about to get up when I realized this was the perfect opportunity to scare him. I would wait until he came right up next to the table and then grab his ankle. That should work.

As I waited for him to come closer, I studied his face. It was looking better today than it had yesterday as well as his hair. I remembered that brief little moment yesterday when I though he was hot and blushed, even though I was beginning to think I was right. His eyes were that gorgeous shade of green that I just couldn't tear my eyes off of, his hair was looking really good and was also fairly attractive, and his lips… _CHLOE! _I screamed at myself. _What the hell are you thinking?! He may be a little more attractive than you thought but you don't have to go thinking about his lips! You don't like him! __Really?_ My inner voice began. _Don't be so sure_. _What the hell are you talking about?_ _Maybe you do like him. I mean come on, what isn't there to like about him?_ _Plenty and I don't like him. __Name three things you don't like about him._ _He's overprotective and um… um… __See! You can't think of anything bad about him and you sort of like the overprotective side of him._ _I do n- okay maybe I do like that a little, it's sweet to know that he cares that much. __Why would you care if he cares about you if you didn't like him?_ _Because he's my friend and friends care about each other. __Yeah and you __**really**__ care about him.__ Just shut up okay! He's coming. __Fine but this is not the end of this conversation. __SHUT UP!!_

My argument with my inner voice was now over and Derek was only a few feet away from me. I readied myself to reach out and grab his ankle. When he was just on the other side of a table leg, I put my plan into action. I thrust my arm out from under the tarps and grabbed Derek's ankle. He let out a yell and tried to look down to see what had grabbed him but somehow wound up falling. Flat on his back. I started laughing hysterically as I crawled out from the tarps. Derek gave me a murderous look as he got up. I just stood next to him, pointing at him and laughing even harder. I tried to get some taunting words out but I was laughing too hard. Derek was now standing and coming closer to me.

"Chloe," he said. "You are so dead."

I tried to say "Not if you can't catch me," but I was still laughing too hard and it didn't even sound like real words. I still took off running away from Derek and towards the farther parts of the attic. I could hear him running after me and he would probably catch me in only a few seconds if it weren't for my secret weapon, my small size. I scanned the walls of junk for a space that I could slip through. I eventually found another table that was standing regularly and that I could fit under. I sprinted over to it and dived, sliding under it and to the other side of the junk wall.

"Come on that's not fair!" Derek said.

"Who said life was fair?" I said, running even harder. I was getting tired and after another minute I was slowing down. I wasn't really paying much attention to where Derek was and that proved to be a problem. Just as I was rounding another pile of junk, I smack right into Derek's chest. _Crap._ He immediately trapped me in his arms. I looked up at his face.

"Truce?" I said. He had a really weird look in his eyes that told me there would be no truce. I was about to try to escape when he started laughing. I looked back up at his face and saw it was full of amusement.

"Come on Chloe," he said. "Do you really think I would hurt you?"

"Of course not Derek, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't do something for payback. Plus that was fun."

"Okay maybe a little but falling on my ass was not."

"Well that was the best part! You should have seen your face!"

"Well if you mention that to anyone, I will do something that will make you regret it."

"Like what?"

"Well that's a secret."

"No fair!"

"Who said life was fair?" he said mimicking my tone from earlier. I hit his arm and I suddenly remembered that he still had his arms around me. I blushed but really didn't mind. It felt nice. _See!! I told you that you like him! I was right! Now you have to do everything I say. __Will you please shut up?! Now really isn't the time for me to have a conversation with my inner voice. __Whatever you say…_ I looked back up to Derek's face and hoped my blush was gone. He looked like he was about to say something but then turned his head like he had heard something.

"What is Casey coming?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Not up here but she's in the hallway and saying some really weird stuff."

"Such as…"

"Just go listen by the stairs, I don't really want to repeat any of it." He dropped his arms from around me and I started walking towards where I thought the stairs were. Then Derek grabbed my arm and pulled me back towards him. _What the hell is he doing?_ Then he turned me around and pointed the complete opposite way from where I had been heading. "The stairs are that way."

"Thanks," I said, blushing a little more and heading the way he was pointing. I reached the stairs and could hear Casey's muffled voice.

"Have you ever heard of Evil Knievel? No I never saw Star Wars. Russian components, American components, ALL MADE IN TIWAN! This is how we fix things in Russian space station! Bang BANG BANG!! Finally! We can go home" Then Casey started laughing hysterically. I looked over to where Derek was kneeling beside me.

"What the hell was that?" he asked.

"I think she's quoting all the main things the Russian guy from Armageddon says. Why though?" Then Casey started talking again.

"Peanut butter pudding, peanut butter pudding peanut butter pudding!!" I looked back over to Derek who immediately burst into laughter. I started laughing as well.

"Why is she saying a bunch of random things?" I asked.

"Probably to make people burst into laughter like we just did," Derek said.

"That's actually a good idea. I never would have though of that."

"I would." I hit his arm again.

"Shut up. You may be smart but you don't think of everything."

"Maybe I just don't say everything I think off."

"Well obviously." We started talking about some random stuff after that until Casey's voice came over the intercom, muffled by the floor.

"Okay Derek and Chloe, you guys win. I've been looking for three hours now and I have no idea where you are. Just come out and into the TV room. Then you'll count together." _Three hours_? I had no idea we had been up here that long. _Time flies when you're with the guy you love. __SHUT UP!! _I looked up to Derek, who was smiling.

"We won," he said. "Come on, let's go gloat." He stood up and held out his hand to help me up. I took it and he pulled me gently to my feet.

"Thanks," I said. "I had no idea we were up here for so long."

"I know," Derek said as he started lowering down the stairs. "Guess time flies when you're having fun."

"Yeah I guess," I now had the stairs all the way to the ground.

"Ladies first," he said. I smiled at him and started climbing down. As soon as I touched the ground, Derek quickly went down three stairs and jumped. He landed lightly on his feet and I gaped at him.

"How come you never injure yourself, no matter what you do?"

"Chloe, I'm a werewolf remember?"

"Shut up." We started walking towards the stairs and the TV room. When we entered it, everyone was sitting on a couch.

"Where were you guys?" Tori asked.

"Well that's a secret," I said and Derek started laughing. I then saw Simon's face. He looked really pissed off and maybe, jealous? I knew he liked me but I had no idea he could get so upset over Derek and I wining hide and seek. Although it was three whole hours together, three hours that I really enjoyed. _Now you're practically admitting it yourself. Come on, just say "I like Derek." It will be so much easier and less complicated and annoying for me. __Hey you're just my inner voice that gives me advice, you don't know every little thing about me. __Actually I do, sometimes more than you do. Like the fact that you really like Derek. Maybe even love.__ WHAT? No I don't love him. Like I told you earlier, we're just friends! __Then why did you just freak out so much if you weren't in denial?__ I am most certainly not in denial. __Yup sure you don't.__ God, can't you just shut up?__ Hey, I'm giving you advice, that's my job.__ I'm done talking to you okay, just shut up._

I tuned out all the things my inner voice was saying and paid attention to the room around me. Apparently James had said something that everyone thought was hilarious and they were all laughing, besides Derek and Simon that is. That really worried me. After Casey had stopped laughing, she shushed everyone.

"Okay guys, come on be quiet," she said although no one listened. The James piped in.

"Everyone just shut the hell up!" he yelled. James seemed to have a much bigger impression over everyone because they all did stop laughing.

"Thank you James. Okay now Chloe and Derek will start counting or looking at a timer so everyone run away like they have Rage **(A.K.A. the disease in 28 Days and Weeks Later. Such sucky movies but had lots of gore and violence and death, all things that are great about movies)**," Casey said before handing Derek a timer and running out of the room. Everyone followed her and Derek and I were alone again. I looked at Derek who was playing with the timer.

"How long are we supposed to set this for?" he asked.

"I think it was five minutes," I said.

"Works for me." He pressed a few buttons, each making a loud beeping noise, before setting it down on the couch next to him. "Okay so now how do you want to do this?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked him, really confused.

"How do you want to find everyone?"

"Oh… Um… How about if I search the house and you search outside?"

"That doesn't seem very fair but sure. Then if you finish come outside and help me."

"How is that not fair?"

"This house is huge but outside there is probably around 20 acres to search."

"You're the werewolf that can track people! You really shouldn't be talking about unfairness."

"What you want to be able to smell people from miles away?"

"You can smell stuff that is miles away?"

"No I was exaggerating, but I can follow the scent of someone who is now a mile away."

"That is so much cooler than talking to dead people and raising them and then getting them pissed off at you."

"I don't know about that."

"Really? Do you want to take my powers for a day? Go to a grave yard and see how you like it."

"Okay sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything," he said quickly. I hadn't noticed that I had shouted that. I looked up and smiled at him.

"It's okay, just I'm still sort of freaked out about being a necromancer and all. Sorry I snapped at you." He smiled down at me.

"It's alright," Derek said. We sat the rest of the time in silence until the timer went off. It suddenly burst into a really loud consistent beeping and I jumped about a foot off the couch when it went off. Derek, of course, started laughing at be before he reached over to turn the evil little thing off. Then he turned back to me.

"Are you ever going to stop being this skittish?"

"Shut up," I said, blushing. "Come on. Let's go find everyone."

"K'" Then we split up, Derek heading to the porch door and me going towards the dining room. I spent about three minutes in there looking everywhere I could think someone could fit. Since no one suddenly popped up after the first two minutes, I assumed that no one was using magic to conceal themselves and left the room.

I did about the same thing in all the other rooms of the house, excluding the bedrooms. I found 6 people. Charlie had been hiding behind one of the fancy curtains in the piano room, which I had smacked to see if anyone was there and Charlie had screamed a couple of swears at me before heading into the TV room. Charlotte was behind the cushions in one of the couches in the reading room. Alex was behind the shower curtain of one of the upstairs bathrooms. Jake was in a cabinet in the classroom. Casey had been in the DVD room, nibbling on a Milky Way while reading a bunch of DVD boxes behind one of the last shelves. The last person I found had been Miles, which kind of scared me. I mean, why would a 32 year old man be on top of a shelf of exercise equipment?

"Miles?" I said when he had hopped down from the shelf. "Are you actually playing hide-and-seek?"

"Yes, do you have a problem with that?" he said.

"Uh… No but I don't see why you would be playing with us."

"I am extremely immature and proud of it and I like to do childish things. Keeps me happy."

"Alright then… I think you should go to the TV room then," I said, still sort of creeped out that he was playing.

"Yup," Miles replied before walking out of the gym. I decided to follow him to see how many people Derek had found. It turned out that he had found everyone but Julie and James. I ran out of the house to help him. I decided to check out the pool and also the storage building. I was about half way down the drive way towards the clearing that held the buildings when I heard someone calling my name. I turned around to see Derek running up the drive way towards me. I smiled and waited for him.

"So you finished with the house?" he asked when he had reached me.

"Yeah," I said. "Only James and Julie weren't in the TV room so they're the only ones left. Unless any other of the adults have decided to play."

"_Other_ adults? Why did you find one of them?"

"Yeah. Miles was on top of one of the shelves in the gym and I got a little creeped out about that."

"I can see why."

"So where haven't you checked?"

"The pool and storage shed. Although James could be anywhere, he probably knows how to cover up his scent."

"Probably." We walked the rest of the way to clearing in silence. When we got there, Derek and I split up again with me going to the pool room and Derek to the storage garage thing. Right before I reached the door, I heard Derek yell "I found him!" I whipped around to see him running towards one of the closest trees and he began climbing it. I looked up in the tree but couldn't find James. Then I looked back at the storage shed and saw a crouched figure, James. Derek was already at the roof's height and only climbed up a few more branches before jumping out of the tree. I screamed and yelled his name, scared to death that he would miss and break his neck. Of course he didn't and instead landed gracefully in a light crouch on his feet. He sprinted towards James who was now trying to jump into another tree to escape. Derek caught him though and I could hear James growling.

"Okay fine, you found me," he said. "Can I leave now?"

"Yes," Derek said, letting go of James' arm. James then headed over to the edge of the roof and jumped. I screamed again but just as Derek had, he landed in a light crouch.

"God," I said. "Why do you werewolves have to jump like that? It scared the hell out of me."

"Well then you haven't been in this house long enough," James said, smiling. "Has Casey been found?"

"Yes, she was eating a Milky Way in the DVD room."

"That sounds like her, although she usually has better hiding places." Then James started sprinting back to the house to be with his precious Casey. I turned my attention back to Derek who was making his way towards the edge.

"Don't you go jumping off the roof too!" I yelled at him. "I don't care if you're a fricken' werewolf. You could get hurt."

"Thanks for the concern!" Derek yelled back before going ahead and jumping anyway. I screamed yet again even though he was going to be fine. He landed and wobbled a little before falling. So much for fine. I ran over to him.

"Derek, Derek!?" I screamed as I shook him. As soon as I touched him, he grabbed my hand and sat up with an evil grin on his face. I pulled my hand away. "That was so not funny."

"I thought it was. And I don't think it's very nice that you doubt me excellent landing abilities," he said, still grinning evilly. I really wanted to smack him.

"I didn't doubt them, I just don't want you to get hurt."

"Thanks. Then I'm sorry I fake injured myself."

"You better be."

"I really am, now let's go find Julie." We stood up and resumed our search for her. She wasn't in either of the buildings and Derek said that he hadn't really checked by the house all that well so we went there. We walked around the house but didn't find her.

"Did you check the garage?" Derek asked when we had done a complete circle.

"No…" I said.

"Well then she's probably in there." We went in the open door and sure enough, there was Julie hiding in the back seat of one of the cars. Once she had jumped out of the car, Derek said, "You win."

"Really?!" Julie asked, amazed.

"Yup," I said. "Now let's go back to the TV room." Derek, Julie, and I walked back in silence to the TV room. Julie set the timer and everyone ran out of there. I decided to go hide in the game room and found a nice spot between a skee-ball machine and the wall. I wedged myself in between them and waited for Julie to come find me. I didn't have to wait long because I heard the timer go off then Julie's feet on the stairs to the basement. _Crap, _I thought. She searched the room for only a few minutes before finding me. I trudged back up the stairs and plopped onto the couch. I turned on the TV and picked up the remote. I flipped onto the guide and saw that it was already 6:00. Wow, this game really does take up a lot of time. I turned on America's Funniest Home Videos and watched that until I heard a scream coming from the reading room. A few second later, Casey came running in, laughing hysterically yet again. She jumped over the back of the couch and sat down beside me.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I hid behind the door of the reading room and when Julie came in I jumped out and she screamed like a banshee and then fell into a chair, knocked it over, and wound up on the ground. It was hilarious!"

Casey and I waited for everyone else to be found and watched a bunch of stupid videos with only one or two funny ones mixed in. Eventually Charlie came in, looking extremely pissed off. He sat on the couch and pouted, making me and Casey crack up. Everyone was found in only 10 minutes, three other people successfully scaring Julie out of her mind. Kyle was the last one left and we started another round.

**Okay guys, what did you think? I know it wasn't quite an exciting chapter and probably not worth the long wait but I'll probably have them all play hide-and-seek again. Both of the times my friends and I played it, I wound up scaring my friend, who Julie is based off of (and who also likes Simon better than Derek. Crazy person right? I actually called her Crazy Lady for like three days after she finished the Awakening.), and the reaction Julie had to Casey scaring her was a combination of both times. SO you know how Casey was saying all the Russian guy from Armegeddon's lines? I do that too! I absolutly love that guy as well and I start laughing hysterically at all of those lines! Armegeddon was on like everyday between Monday and Friday so I wound up watching it every time. I successfully got Leavin' on a Jet Plane stuck in my head because of watching it too. I've been humming it like every 10 minutes since like Wednesday, annoying my family more than anything I've done in a while. It was really funny. Anyway, please review even if you guys are really pissed off that you had to wait so long for an update. Thanks for still reading this after the long wait! I'll really try to update as soon as possible but until I finish The City of Glass, don't get your hopes up. Bye peoples! I must read!**


	10. Whoa, that's a lot of food

**Hiya peoples! Sorry for the long wait again, I don't really have an excuse this time, I just didn't type much. Well I do have some small excuses. I had to do two big projects over the weekend and I also had to finish The City of Glass over the past week. I finished it on Friday and well, all I can say without giving anything away is stupid Sebastian, I used to love you, and Jace you're even cooler and I love you even more. Did no one really see The Lightning Thief? Please tell me if you did 'cause no one who said something did. My poor puppy, Harley, has had such a tough few days. On Sunday, he fell through a retention pond and almost drowned. On Monday, my mom accidentally cut off a big chunk of his skin that was bigger than a quarter. Then yesterday he had to have stitches because of the giant cut and now he has to wear his cone again. Now everyone besides me is making fun of poor little Harley and his cone. Anybody feel bad for him? So this week is ISAT (Illinois Standard Academic Testing or something like that) week for me. The teachers are being so fricking stupid. They won't let us bring in books or homework to do after the tests just because they think we'll just go back and check our answers after instead of reading or something. Well no one has done that! We all just sit there for over 20 minutes doing nothing. All I do is color all the lines on my calculator over, and over, and over again. Uhg, it's horrible. Hey so who else is really upset that Kelly Armstrong hasn't added another chapter of the Reckoning up? I am! I've looked like twice a day since the first! So aggravating! Okay one more thing and then I'll get to the chapter. Who rented 2012 one the 2****nd****? I did! I love that movie and couldn't wait for it to come on Netflix. Yeah so now I'll get to the story. Sorry about any grammar/spelling stuff and out-of-characterness. I do not own Darkest Powers. Also, I'm sorry that this is a boring chapter, I'll try to make the next one better.**

Chloe's POV

"Found you!!" Charlotte yelled as she opened the door to the cabinet I was hiding in.

"Crap," I said as I dragged myself from the cabinet and began I walking back into the TV room. We had played four more games of Hide-and-Seek and it was now almost 9:00. Everyone had agreed that this would be our last round. Frank and Libby had joined the game in the fourth round and after that things started getting really intense. For others anyway. Everyone who had a usable power used theirs. Libby actually hid in the fire place (that was lit), Charlie stood on a huge rock and levitated it into a tree, Charlotte was in the pool, Casey kept moving around because she was astral projecting to wherever the seeker was so she knew when to move, then all the sorcerers and witches (excluding Simon) made themselves invisible. I got really annoyed that I couldn't do anything awesome.

I reached the couch and plopped down next to Simon. He, Alex, and Jake were watching an episode of Mythbusters. Simon turned to me and smiled.

"You got found too?" he asked.

"Yep, cabinet in the classroom. Where were you?"

"Playing some of the arcade games downstairs."

"That's not really hiding."

"So? It was fun."

"Shut up," I said as I hit his arm. I'd been doing that a lot today. Suddenly, my stomach growled and I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. I got up and started walking towards the kitchen.

"Where you going?" Simon asked as he turned around on the couch to face me.

"Kitchen, I'm starving," I replied.

"Me too." Simon got up from the couch and quickly jogged over to catch up with me. We entered the kitchen together. Claire was sitting at the table with a bowl of spaghetti.

"Hey guys," she said as we came in. "Do you want me to make you anything?"

"No, I'm good," I said. "Just where is the mac and cheese?"

"Over in the pantry," Claire said, gesturing towards the door across the room.

"Thanks," I said as I made my way over towards the door. Simon followed me.

"So is mac and cheese the only thing you can make?" he asked.

"Maybe," I said. I looked up at him and saw his unconvinced face. "Okay I can make almost anything that comes in a box but that's about it."

"Wow, that's just sad," Simon said, shaking his head.

"Hey we had a cook since I was like 8 so there wasn't much need."

"Well I had to learn to cook for midnight snacks and times when our dad wasn't home."

"You cook?" I asked, amazed.

"Not really," Simon said as he looked down at me. "I have about the same cooking abilities as you do. Derek can actually cook stuff though, because eats so much."

"_Derek_ can cook?"

"Yup, and surprisingly nothing he's ever made has killed anyone," Simon said as he open up the pantry door. As soon as it swung open he stopped in his tracks. "Whoa. That is a lot of food." The pantry had to go at least ten feet into the wall and was around four feet wide. There were three shelves across all the walls that were all stocked with food.

"How are we going to find mac and cheese in this place?" I asked.

"It's on the right wall, second shelf from the bottom, and towards the back," Claire yelled from the table.

"Thanks!" Simon yelled back as he dove into the pantry. The right wall seemed to be mostly real food, while the left was all snacks. He quickly found the mac and cheese and grabbed a box. He hurried out of the pantry and back to me. "So… Do you want to make it or should I?"

"How 'bout if you boil the water and put the noodles in and I put all the other stuff in?" I suggested.

"Aww. You took the fun part," he said as he smiled down at me.

"Does that mean you don't want to make the noodles?" I asked jokingly.

"No it's fine," he huffed dramatically. I laughed and shook my head. He searched the cabinets for a pot and measuring stuff while I sat down at the table across from Claire.

"Hello Chloe," she said. "How was Hide-and-Seek?"

"Fun," I said. "Why do you have so much food?"

"Well there are around ten teenagers here and now three werewolves so we need a lot of food."

"That's a good point," I said. Then Andrew came in. He walked to the fridge and got a can of Pepsi. He turned to Simon, who was now waiting for the water to boil, as he popped open his can.

"I never knew you could cook Simon," he said.

"Just things from boxes. And I'm only making the noodles, Chloe's mixing all the stuff."

"So you can't even mix a bunch of stuff together?" Andrew asked.

"Can to, just Chloe wanted to split the work, right Chloe?" Simon called over to me.

"I don't know Simon, maybe you really can't mix stuff together," I teased him. Simon gave a big sigh before turning back to the boiling water. Andrew came and sat next to Claire. Suddenly I why we were actually at this house. "Hey Andrew, I thought this was supposed to be like a headquarters for some anti-Edison Group organization thingy. Where's all the planning for taking them down?"

"It is Chloe," Andrew said calmly. "This was Mile's father's house before he died and he started our organization. We have meetings every month and the next one won't be fore around three weeks so we'll fill you in around then. Otherwise you'll all probably forget everything."

"Okay then," I said. Just then, Simon came walking over to the table and sat down next to me. "Done with your attempt at cooking?"

"Thanks for that," he said. We talked for a couple of minutes until the noodles were finished. I got up and stained them and added all the stuff in. Once it was mixed well enough, I searched for some bowls and forks. I eventually found them and grabbed two of each. I filled them up and there was still around half of the pot left. I brought the bowls to the table and sat back down next to Simon. He immediately took his bowl and started shoveling his food into his mouth.

"Not even a thank you, Chloe?" I said. Simon looked up at me and smiled, with his mouth full of mac and cheese. Then he said, "Thank you Chloe" with his mouth still full.

"You're disgusting," I told him.

"Thank you," Simon said after he swallowed. Just then Tori walked in and saw us.

"Seriously guys?" she said. "Macaroni and Cheese? What are you, 10?"

"Hey! It's good okay!" Simon exclaimed. "And I did warn you that we are freakishly immature before you decided to come with us."

"Shut up Simon," Tori said as she walked around the kitchen. "Claire where is the food?"

"Pantry over there," Claire said as she pointed towards the pantry. Tori walked over there and I could here a muffled "Whoa." I can't wait until Derek sees all the food. That ought to be entertaining.

"Where did you get food?" Derek said. I quickly looked up from my bowl and saw him walking through the doorway. That boy seriously makes no noise!

"Chloe and I made it," Simon said.

"You actually cooked something Simon?" Derek said.

"Why does everyone keep saying that?!" Simon screamed. Derek looked down at me.

"Is there any more left?"

"Yeah," I said. "Over on the stove. Bowls are… I don't remember. Somewhere."

"'K," he said as he walked over to some cabinet and pulled out a bowl. Of course he knew where it was. Derek knows _everything._ Then he got some mac and cheese and came and sat next to me. Just like Simon, he immediately attacked his food.

"Why do guys have to eat so fast?" Tori said as she walked out of the pantry with some sort of granola bar.

"We're hungry, so what?" Simon said through a mouthful of food. Tori and him started arguing and I just tuned them out. I finished my mac and cheese just as Derek was finishing his second bowl. He went up for thirds when I put my bowl and fork in the dishwasher. Then I went back into the TV room. Casey and James were sitting in the corner of one couch and Julie and Charlie were spread out on the other. I went over and sat next to Julie. She turned to me.

"Hey Chloe," she said.

"Hi," I said. Then I remembered that she was also a necromancer and decided to start my researching. "Hey Julie?"

"Yeah?"

"Okay um… c-can you like… raise dead people?"

"What? No definitely not. That's impossible for me and Miles said he's only done it like three times. Why?"

"W-w-well I c-can," I said weakly. _Great, now I know my powers are freakish._

"You _can_?!" Julie exclaimed, utterly astonished. Charlie was now coming over to us. Even greater.

"Can what?" Charlie said in his freakishly awesome accent.

"Chloe can raise the dead!" Julie practically screamed.

"What?! That is so awesome! I thought that was like almost impossible for necromancers to do though."

"It is. How the heck do you do it Chloe?"

"Not on purpose that's for sure."

"So you raise dead people without even trying?!"

"Sadly yes, I've done it in my sleep twice, once with some bats and another some really pissed off homeless guy. They really don't like to be put back into their dead bodies," is said. I winced at the memory of that homeless guy crawling up my leg as I slept. Thank God Derek was there. Otherwise I probably would have screamed my head off.

"Whoa," Julie said. She got off the couch. "Come on Chloe."

"Why? Where are we going?" I asked, now sort of scared.

"You need to tell Miles this. He'll probably know what to do. He's an expert on all things necromancer."

"If you say so," I said. I got up off the couch and followed Julie upstairs. She stopped at a door about halfway down the hallway and had a piece of paper that said "Miles" on it. She knocked.

"Come on! I'm trying to watch TV!" Miles yelled from inside the room.

"Then you should watch it downstairs with everyone else," Julie said. "And this is important."

"I don't care. It can wait until the morning. It's already 10:00." Julie shook her head.

"Okay, then I guess you don't want to hear about how Chloe can raise dead things in her sleep. We'll just go," Julie said as she grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall. Then she whispered, "Three, two, one." just then the door to Miles room was thrust open and Miles came running down the hall, cutting us off.

"What did you say?" he said while catching his breath.

"Chloe can raise things in her sleep," Julie said simply. Miles stared at me.

"You can?"

"Yes," I said. Miles was starting to freak me out from staring at me the way he was. Then he turned around and started pacing.

"This is not good. This is so not good," he mumbled. Then he turned back to look at me and Julie so fast I thought he might run into us. "Okay Chloe, you were one of the Genesis subjects right?"

"Genesis two actually," I said.

"Okay, okay. That makes things a little better. At least we know why. You do know that no necromancer should ever be able to raise things in their sleep right?"

"Now I do."

"Okay… um… How many things have you raised exactly?"

"Well…" I said. I tried to think of everything that I had raise. Such nice memories. "Well t-there was two b-bodies in a crawl space under Lyle House, a c-couple of bats at an old warehouse, a creepy homeless guy, and then a b-bird on purpose. The rest were all unintentional."

"Great," Miles muttered. "Just great. Okay Chloe. We are going to have to start some serious training tomorrow and I also will need to see how strong your powers really are. You'll have to bring some dead beetles or something back to life. Is that okay with you?" I nodded. "Alright, now go back downstairs. I want to finish watching Star Wars."

Julie and I turned back to the stairs and headed down.

"He actually watches Star Wars alone in his room?" I asked Julie. "That seems pretty nerdy."

"He kind of is," Julie said, laughing. "He usually watches some TV by himself everyday though. He says that although he might still be a kid at heart, the noise kills him. Miles is an awesome teacher though. He, Frank, and Claire are like the awesomest teachers any of us have ever had."

"Claire was a teacher?" I asked.

"Yup. She was a math teacher. That's how she and Frank met. They both had just started out at some school in South Dakota and then fell in love or something like that."

"_South Dakota_? Why would they teach there?"

"That's where they both grew up, I think. I know James and Jake grew up there. Not many of us here actually were born or ever lived in New York, only Miles and Anna. Miles' dad tracked down a bunch of supernaturals that had kids who hadn't been found by the Edison Group and moved us all to this suburb in Illinois. Me, Casey, Alex, and Kyle all were there along with our families. Then about a year ago, something weird that they wouldn't tell us about happened with the Edison Group and all us kids got sent here. Apparently Miles' dad had this place enforced and hidden with like every magical means possible. You can't see the house at all from a satellite. Only people who know about it or are with someone who does can see the driveway, including the mailman. Usually Frank or Libby go get the mail at the post office everyday. So yeah, this place is really safe."

"Well that's a relief," I said as we rounded the corner into the TV room. Simon and Derek had joined Charlie on one couch and were talking to each other and watching some show about roller coasters. Tori was still at the table, eating another granola bar. Julie went into the kitchen while I went to sit by Simon. He and Derek both turned to face me. Simon opened his mouth to say something but Derek talked first.

"Where did you go?" he questioned.

"Julie took me to talk to Miles upstairs."

"Why did you go talk to Miles?" Derek asked. I saw Simon close his mouth again. He just couldn't get a word out with Derek around.

"Well I told Julie about me raising things in my sleep and she spazzed out and told me it wasn't normal and practically impossible to raise things in general. Then she took me upstairs to talk to Miles who also spazzed out and just kept saying 'This isn't good' over and over. I'm apparently also starting training tomorrow."

"Training?" Simon said finally. "Yeah I was wondering about that. When are we supposed to start?"

"You should probably ask Andrew," Derek said.

"Yeah I'll do that now," Simon said as he stood up from the couch. Once he left, I turned to Derek.

"What are you doing for training?" I asked.

"Frank said that usually he and James just run in the forest for a few hours and then do some fighting strategies and crap."

"Well that sounds fun."

"What about you? What are you doing for training?"

"I have absolutely no idea. Miles said that I might have to bring beetles or something back to life. Really looking forward to that."

"Chloe," Derek said. I looked up at him. "You don't need to be freaked out by your powers. You just need to understand them and then-"

"I start tomorrow too guys!" Simon said happily as he came back to the couch.

"Good for you Simon," I said. Suddenly, I heard a scream come from the other couch. I whipped my head towards the source and saw Casey screaming and jumping up and down, pointing at the TV.

"What?" Charlie said.

"TOP THRILL DRAGSTER!!!!!!!" Casey screamed, still jumping and pointing at the TV. I looked over at it and saw that there was some weird roller coaster on it.

"What's that?" I asked. Casey snapped her head to me.

"'What's that?' 'What's that?!' How can you say that Chloe? Top Thrill Dragster is like one of the best roller coasters ever. Here look. EVERYONE SHUT UP!!"

Everyone looked at the screen. There was some guy talking about the roller coaster. Apparently it was 420 feet high and went 120mph. It went straight up and then straight down with a turn. It looked really scary.

"You would actually go on that?" I asked Casey.

"I have been on it!" Casey yelled. "I practically had to drag my dad onto it too. Afterwards I was skipping around in circles and he was just standing there muttering 'Never again' over and over. It was hilarious! The roller coaster is AMAZING though."

"I'd go on it," Derek said.

"Me too," Simon said. Although by the look on his face I didn't really think he would.

"James," Casey said. "I don't care whether or not you want to. We are going to go to Cedar Point and you and I are sitting front row on Top Thrill Dragster. And just about every other ride there."

"Come on Case," James whined. "I do not want to go on that, much less any of the other roller coaster you've showed me three hundred times."

"Well you're going to. Otherwise I'll just call you Jimmy for the rest of you life. That okay with you Jimmy?"

"Do not call me Jimmy," James growled.

"Well Jimmy, you have to promise me that you'll go on every roller coaster a Cedar Point with me."

"Fine. God, you really know how to blackmail."

"Just you, James," Casey said. "Hey who wants to play kick the can?"

"Are you serious Casey?" Simon said. "We already played hide-and-seek for like six hours."

"Of course I'm serious. I like games, okay. So who wants to play? And yes James you are playing."

Everyone besides Tori agreed to play. We all walked outside with the exception of James who ran to get something from the garage. While we waited for him to come back, Casey explained the rules to everyone who didn't know how to play, meaning just me. Then James came running around the house with a light green football and a flashlight.

"Here you go Casey," he said as he tossed the stuff to her. Casey turned on the flashlight and put it right onto the football which immediately started glowing.

"Glow in the dark football?" Simon asked.

"Yup," Casey said, moving the flashlight around on the football. "I got it for my 11th birthday specifically so it could replace the can in kick the can. Okay! So I'm it guys. Now go hide, you have two minutes."

Everyone ran off and the game began.

**I warned you it was bad. I'm really sorry it was so boring. Like I said, I'll really try to make the next one better. So you know how Casey said all that stuff about Top Thrill Dragster and Cedar Point? Again all my opinions and experiences. I also did get a glow in the dark football to play kick the can with for around my 12****th**** birthday. But like the next week my dad ran it over with the lawn mower because it was in the middle of a pile of leaves. That thing was awesome! So who liked the fact that Simon and Chloe made macaroni and cheese together? I didn't but I had to add some sort of bonding time between them. Now who liked everyone making fun of Simon? ME!! That was so much fun to write. So the next chapter will probably involve training. I'll post it as soon as I can. See you soon!**


	11. Training

**Hey everyone! Thank you all for your reviews. A special thanks to burning impossibly bright who was the only one to feel sympathy for my little puppy. SO I forgot to mention this last chapter, I saw Wolfman last weekend! I thought it was hilarious, there was just so much blood and gore it was funny and awesome. Like three people got decapitated and that was just so awesome! I was smiling evilly or silently laughing the entire time! Also, I now understand why Changing hurts Derek so much. They showed the guy in Wolfman going through his first change and it was so horrible because it reminded me of Derek I almost started crying. So, speaking of movies, last night I watched Wedding Crashers. It was funny and I liked it but like all of the even semi-bad words were bleeped out and it was really annoying because you couldn't follow half of the conversations! But it had Will Ferrel in it, even if he was a complete freak, and any movie with Will Ferrel has to be good! Okay so I have a question for you guys, who completely loves Adrian Ivashkov from Vampire Academy? ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!! I just love him and I hope that Rose chooses him instead of Dimitri. I used to love the Russian but now I just find him annoying. Anyway, I ask because one of my friends has finally finished Shadow Kissed and she still doesn't love Adrian! She says he's a drug addict and a freak and it makes me really mad. Who cares if he's an addict, he's freakin' awesome! So my friend is currently reading Blood Promise and she read like half of it the first day I gave it to her. Actually she's probably finished with it by no. Anyway… I think that's it! Again, sorry for any spelling/grammar stuff and anything out of character, which I'm pretty sure there is. And Kelly Armstrong owns Darkest Powers, not me. Here's the chapter!**

"AAHHH!!" I yelled as I woke up and bolted up on my bed. _Okay, _I thought, _it's only a dream._ I had been having a dream where I was in a cemetery and raised all the bodies. They were trying to get me and I was running, but the dream wouldn't let me run. Then a body jumped down from a tree above me and suddenly they all were jumping out of the tree. I was completely surrounded by dead bodies when suddenly a big pit opened up beneath me and all the bodies and I began falling. That's when I woke up. I was still trying to calm down when I heard a voice.

"Chloe? Are you okay?" someone said. I jumped and looked around the room. I saw someone standing, no floating, right by the window. The person stepped forward and I recognized them.

"Casey?" I asked.

"Hey, Chloe. Are you okay? You sounded pretty freaked out," Casey said.

"Uh… Yeah I'm fine," I said, trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. "What are you doing in my room at…" I looked at the clock. "3:30 in the morning?"

"Oh…" Casey said. "Well when I can't sleep, I astral project into other people's rooms and watch them sleep. It is very entertaining sometimes. If you don't want me to though, I won't go in you're room anymore."

"I don't really care Casey," I said. "So why can't you sleep?"

"I don't know really. Probably just all the caffeine I had last night."

"Yeah that's probably it," I said, thinking back to kick the can last night. We played until almost midnight again and Casey had chugged a can of pop after each game. "Well can I go back to sleep now?"

"Yeah, sure. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up or anything."

"I know. Bye Casey."

"Bye Chloe!" Casey said happily. Her body began to fade and soon she wasn't there at all. I turned over and tried to fall back asleep. I was again however, unsuccessful. I reached for my iPod but remembered that I had plugged it into one of the computers and I was not going downstairs. I kept trying to fall back asleep but eventually, the inner voice in my head began talking.

_So… Let's talk some more about Derek.__ Uhg! You have got to be kidding me. I thought I said we were with this conversation. __No, you said "I'm done talking to you." I was the one who said "We're not done with this conversation." So come on, let us talk. __There isn't anything to talk about. I do not like Derek. __Stop saying that already! It's really annoying. I am you inner voice, and I know everything about you. So what can I do to convince you?__ Become a physical being, look like a leprechaun, and dance around in circles. __Eww, I hate leprechauns. And you know I can't really be real, I'm your _inner_ voice. That means I stay in you head. Now can we please really discuss this Derek issue? Why is it that you think you don't like Derek?__ Because he is only my friend and nothing more._ _That's not a reason. It's denial. Do you still think you like Simon?__ You're my inner voice. You know everything about me, ask yourself. __I need to hear you admit it. Now is it a yes or no?__ I don't know. Maybe… __See now we are getting somewhere. Now… Tell me what you think makes you feel all weird when you look into his eyes. _**(Wow that sounded really cheesey.)**_ Um… That's a good point. __Ah ha! So you admit it.__ I did not. I just can't think about any reason for me to feel that way when I look at him. __Well it means you like him. REALLY, REALLY like him.__ God, will you just shut up? I'm tired and want to go back to sleep. __Uhg! Why can't you just admit it?! I'll let you sleep for now but next time, I'm not letting you go that easily.__ Thank you. Now go away._

My inner voice really did shut up after that. After a few minutes, I finally did fall back asleep.

I woke up to the sun shining in through the window. I looked over at the clock, which read 9:30. I sighed and got out of bed. I walked over to the pile of clothes Julie had lent me. She was the shortest in the house and all her clothes were only slightly big on me. I grabbed some jeans and tee shirt and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. I took 20 minutes or so more than I needed to thoroughly wash all the die out of my hair. When I was back to my normal blond self, I got out of the shower and pulled out a towel from under the sink. I dried off and got dressed. I left the bathroom and went back to my room to drop off the pajamas Julie had also lent me. I walked downstairs and headed towards the kitchen.

On the way to food, I saw the open door to the game basement and a bunch of people talking and yelling from down there. Charlie and Jake were talking on one of the couches to each other and Alex and Derek were just watching TV. I didn't really feel like talking to anyone so I walked into the kitchen and found no one in there for once. I found a muffin on the counter and started eating it while I searched for the milk and a cup. I found both and poured myself a glass. I was on my second muffin when Simon came running up from the basement. He came into the kitchen with an amused look on his face.

"Hey Chloe," he said as he grabbed a muffin and sat next to me.

"Hi," I said weakly. I was still tired and really didn't feel like talking to Simon. He didn't seem to realize this though.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Just tired."

"Oh, well I'm not! I've been up since like 7:00 and have been downstairs playing Super Mario Bros with Casey and Kyle. That game is so freaking aggravating."

"Good for you Simon," I said. I looked up at him and saw the hurt expression on his face. "I'm sorry, I'm just really tired."

"It's alright," Simon said. "Why are you so tired?"

"Casey visited my room last night and I couldn't fall back asleep," I said. I didn't think that Simon would really need to know that I was also having an argument with my inner voice about whether or not I like Derek so I just skipped that part.

"Why did she come into your room?"

"Apparently she couldn't sleep and when she can't sleep, she astral projects into other rooms and watch people sleep. Don't ask me why."

"Yeah that's kind of weird." Simon and I talked a little for a while before Miles came into the room.

"Good, you're up," he said to me. "Julie and I usually start training around 11 every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday so you should be ready by then each day we have training. You have about an hour. Meet me and Julie outside by the garage. Okay?"

"Sure," I mumbled. I had completely forgotten about the training and was not really looking forward to it. I left Simon in the kitchen and went to the couch. I laid down in one of the corners and watched Man vs. Food, which was already on. My eyelids became heavy after a couple of minutes and I closed them , thinking I could take away some of the tiredness by just closing them. It wasn't until I felt someone shaking me that I realized I had fallen asleep. I picked up my hand and rubbed at my eyes before opening them. I saw Simon sitting next to me on the couch.

"I fell asleep?" I asked him.

"Yup, I guess you really were tired. Anyway I would have let you sleep but it's 10:58 and I heard Miles tell you training is at 11:00 so…"

"Thanks Simon," I said smiling at him. "I guess I better get going then." I stood up and walked towards the porch door. I went outside and ran over to the garage, thinking maybe a little exercise would wake me up. It actually worked and by the time I reached the garage door, I was entirely awake. I rounded the corner and saw Miles sitting on a foldable plastic table that he had set up. There was a big box on the end opposite the side of table Miles was sitting on. I walked up to him and asked "What's in the box?"

"You're future zombies," Miles said as he tipped the box towards me. The top was open and as I looked into the box, I saw a bunch of dead bugs. I shivered.

"Is this really necessary? " I asked him.

"Yes it is. I need to see exactly how strong your powers are and this is pretty much the only way. Unless of course you would like to raise human bodies."

"No. I'll stick with the bugs," I said as I went over to sit on the table. "Where's Julie?"

"Right there," Miles said, pointing towards the back of the house. Julie was just coming around the corner of the house. She saw me and waved and started running over.

"Hey Chloe!" she said as she came closer to the table.

"Hi Julie," I said. She got to the table and sat down on it next to me.

"Okay guys," Miles said as he stood up. "Julie, we aren't going to go to the cemetery today. We're just going to watch Chloe bring the bugs back to life."

"Wait," I said. "You go to a cemetery for training?"

"Yup," Julie said. "I know it's pretty freaky but it's the best way to find ghosts. So says Miles anyway."

"It really is Julie. Okay come on now. Off the table. It's time to work." Julie and I jumped off of the table and stood next to Miles. "Okay Chloe, now we're really going to see what you can do. Go stand by table."

I walked over to the table and Miles went on the other side so he could face me. Be beckoned Julie to stand next to him and she came over. Miles then put one hand into the box of dead bugs and pulled out a handful. He set them on the table in front of me.

"That is really disgusting Miles," Julie said. "You could at least use a glove."

"But where's the fun in that?" Miles said jokingly. "Okay now Chloe, do you know exactly how you raise things?"

"Not exactly," I said. "Well when I was experimenting with that bird with Derek, I just tried summoning Liz, one of the other kids at Lyle House who the Edison Group killed. Should I try that again?"

"Sure. Try to do exactly what you did last time. Then we'll try different ways."

"Alright," I said. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on Liz. I pictured he face and tried calling to her in my mind. I kept doing this doing this for a few more seconds before Miles said stop. I opened my eyes and saw that three of the bugs were beginning to crawl around the table.

"Okay. So this is what happens when you just try to call a ghost to you right?"

"That's what I was doing."

"Alright then, now why don't you try to actually bring back the bugs. Focus on putting their spirits back into their bodies." Miles reached back into the box and drew out another handful of bugs.

I closed my eyes and focused on bringing the bugs back to life. I imagined pushing their spirits back into their bodies and after a few seconds, Miles told me to stop again. I opened my eyes and this time, found all the bugs crawling around.

"Good job Chloe," Miles said. "Now try releasing them."

"Sure," I said. I closed my eyes again and tried to imagine pulling the spirits out of the bugs. Miles stopped me very quickly this time and when I opened my eyes, all the bugs had stopped moving and were frozen on the table, once again dead.

"Good," Miles said again. "Now let's try some different ways."

Miles made me practice bringing the bugs back to life for three whole hours. By the time he let me go back inside, I was exhausted. Frank and James apparently did a group self defense class every Monday too so I had a feeling that I was going to be really sore tomorrow. The classish thing was at 3:30 so I had around an hour and a half to do what ever I wanted, so I decided to go look at some of the necromancer books. I walked into the house and then to the reading room. I grabbed five necromancer books and sat down with them at one of the tables.

I started with a book called _Necromancer, a Ghost's Best Friend._ Really weird title but it actually was very helpful. It explained that you could tell ghosts from real people by just concentrating on them and seeing if they begin to fade. I was really going to have to try that out. I started with another called _The Art of Summoning._ I was halfway through one of the chapters about safely summoning ghosts when Claire came into the room with a laptop under her arm.

"There you are Chloe," she said as she came and sat at the table across from me. "I've been looking for you. Tuesday is always our shopping day and since tomorrow is a Tuesday, all of us will be gone almost all day. Well everyone besides you and Derek."

"Why not us?" I asked confused.

"Well you are the one with the half a million dollars reward for your safe return to your father. And Derek is you supposed kidnapper so we all think it would be best if you both stay here. Better not to involve the police in a simple shopping trip. Anyway, I came to find you because I know you all need clothes and I figured you might want to pick out your own stuff over the internet. Then we'll buy the stuff for you at the store. I think we'll be going to Kohl's, Old Navy, and then Aeropostale. You can go on any of their websites and look for whatever you want." Claire set the laptop down in front of me.

"Thanks Claire," I said as I pulled the laptop closer. Then I thought about Derek looking for clothes over the internet and had to stifle a laugh. "Is Derek doing this too?"

"He said just to have Simon get him some stuff." _ Damn, I would have loved to see that. _Claire stood up to leave but just as she was about to exit the room, she turned back. "By the way," she said. "You might want to look at swim suits. We have the pool open all year and usually wind up swimming at least once a week, so if you want to swim at all, it's probably a good idea to find one. Also, if you want to every leave the yard, you should probably pick out a hair dye color."

"Okay, thanks," I said. Claire really did leave the room this time and I turned on the laptop. Once everything had stopped loading, the profile thingy screen popped up. There was only a guest thing so I clicked that. It opened and I clicked the internet icon. Then I went to Google and started looking for clothes.

I found a few pairs of jeans, some sweatshirts, and a bunch of really cute shirts in about 10 minutes. The swim suit and hair dye took a while though. I was looking a light brownish hair color and a bluish tankini and couldn't find anything like what I actually wanted. I spent around ten minutes looking through all the brown colors of hair dye. Eventually I found one that I really like and put it on the list I was keeping. The swim suit took even longer. I spent like 30 minutes trying to find something like it until I finally just quit and started looking for other stuff. I eventually found a really cute brown bikini and put that down on the list. I messed around for another few minutes before I noticed that it was 3:20. I turned off the laptop and went to go find Claire. I found her in the kitchen yet again, cleaning the counters.

"Here Claire," I said as I handed over the laptop and list. Claire accepted the list but wouldn't take the laptop back.

"No Chloe" she said, pushing the computer back at me. "You keep it."

"Claire, no," I said. "I can't let you give me a laptop."

"It's fine really," Claire said. "Frank works from home for a computer company and he get's four free computers every year. We have like five sitting in the attic at any time. Everyone in the house has one too so please, take it."

"Thanks Claire," I said, taking back the laptop. I looked at the clock on the oven and saw it was 3:27. "Oh, crap, I have to go to the defense thing. Thanks again Claire!" I ran upstairs to put the laptop in my room. Then I ran over to the gym where the class thing was. I pushed open the door and saw that all the kids were already there, plus Frank. "Sorry, I was talking to Claire."

"It's fine Chloe," Frank said. "Just pair up with someone."

"Okay," I said as I looked around the room. Tori seemed to be the only one who didn't have a partner so I went over to her.

"Hi Chloe," she said. "I hope you know that I'm going to kick your ass."

"Thanks for that Tori," I said as I turned to face Frank and James.

"Okay everyone," Frank started. "Today we're going to do some simple punching strategies."

"WHAT?" Julie screamed. She looked up at her partner, Kyle. "I don't want to get punched by Kyle!"

"And I don't want to punch a girl," Kyle whined.

"Then use the glove things," James said. "Now just shut up!"

"James calm down," Frank said to his son. "But he's right everybody. If you don't really want to hurt anyone, just use the punching glove. James go get them."

"Uhg fine," James said as he ran over to a door on the right side of the gym. He disappeared into it and in a few seconds, came out with a box. He ran back over to Frank and started throwing things to each group. Tori caught ours and held up one of those punching things everyone had been talking about. She shook it and smiled at me.

"Do we really have to use this?" she asked.

"Uh yeah! I'm not going to let you actually hit me," I said.

"You're no fun Chloe."

"Everyone!" Frank said. "Okay, so first we're going to try the simple, average punch. Here let me demonstrate." He turned to James and pulled his hand back. "Sorry son," he said as he swung his arm forwards, his hand hitting right on James' jaw. James stumbled back a little and rubbed his jaw, but otherwise seemed fine.

"That was actually a good punch Dad," he said.

"Thank you James. So now did everyone see that?"

"No," Charlie said.

"Yeah I figured not," James said.

"James," Frank warned. "Okay I'll go through it in slow motion this time, and explain each step." He drew his hand back again and showed us the whole process twice. Then it was our turn to try it on our partners.

"You want to go first?" I asked Tori.

"Sure!" Tori said happily. She smiled evilly and tossed me the punch glove. I slipped it on, held it up away from me, and prepared myself. Tori pulled back her arm just like Frank had showed us and swung it towards me. Even though I knew I was protected, I still flinched at the impact of her hand. I stumbled back a few steps before looking back at Tori. She was holding her hand and yelling "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" I started laughing hysterically at her and everyone turned to look at us. I could hear someone else laughing just as hard as I was and turned to see Casey pointing at Tori and laughing her head off. Charlie was her partner and was looking at her like she was crazy but also was clearly holding back a laugh. Derek and Simon were both staring at me like I had lost my mind. Simon looked merely amused while Derek was just, well Derek. He had a completely stoic expression on his face but I could see amusement in his eyes. I stopped laughing after a few seconds and so did Casey and we got back to work.

Tori refused to try punching me through the glove again so I began punching her. I did everything just as Frank had showed us and when my hand hit the glove, it didn't hurt at all. I smiled, thinking that I had actually done it right and Tori had apparently done it wrong, considering how she freaked out when she hit me. I kept hitting her over and over again until Frank told us all to stop.

"Alright everyone," he said. "Good job all of you. Now let's try some defense moves against a punch. James, hit me."

"Fine Dad," James said as he pulled back his arm and swung it forward. Right before he hit Frank's face, Frank brought up his arm so fast it was a blur and smacked James' arm away from him. James let his arm fall and said, "How come you get to do all the fun things? I want to punch you for once."

"Fine you can demonstrate next time," Frank said before turning back to all of us. "Should I slow it down for everyone?"

"Yes Frank!" Charlotte said.

"Okay then," Frank began. "James you explain."

"Yes," James said. He then proceeded to explain the defense move.

The class ended after about an hour and a half. It was really fun getting to beat up Tori, even if it was only through a punching glove. Tori still didn't do anything right and wound up hurting herself like five times. I laughed at every one of those times and so did Casey, who was really good at punching people. She had asked Charlie to not use the glove at all and he had said yes, which was a huge mistake. Casey punched him really hard the first time and sent him flying back into a shelf of exercise balls. She did this a couple of other times and by the time we were done, Charlie was already covered in at least a dozen bruises. Casey was nice and healed him but Charlie still wouldn't talk to her.

After the class thing ended, I went upstairs to go get the laptop Claire had given me. I had nothing better to do so I brought it downstairs to mess around with while I watched some TV. It was a really cool laptop. It was a light blue color with a pretty big screen. I opened up the guest profile thing again so I could change it to make it look that way I wanted to. It took me a while to find the change profile button. I first changed the name from "Guest" to "Chloe" then started looking through the little profile picture. I was about to click on this one with an adorable little puppy on it when I saw a ghost thing. I clicked it to make it bigger and it came up as this really cute cartoon ghost. I choose that one and moved on to backgrounds.

I spent like an hour changing all the setting before Claire called everyone in for dinner. I hadn't even realized that it was already 6:00 so I went and put my laptop in the computer room. I went back to the kitchen and found Derek, James, and Charlie already crowded around the food with plates.

As I drew closer them, I saw that Claire had made a fried food dinner. There were chicken nuggets, fried chicken, onion rings, regular fries, smiley fries, and then a bunch of other stuff that I couldn't really identify. I grabbed a plate and started loading up it up. The three guys alone had taken at least a third of the food but there was still a lot to choose from. I filled up my plate and grabbed a Coke that Claire had set out next to the food. I then went back to the table and sat down next to Derek, who was scarfing down all of his food. I had barely touched my food before he stood up and went to get seconds, quickly followed by James. What is it with all the werewolves eating nonstop?

The guys had just reached to food counter when Casey, Julie, and Jake came in. Casey saw what was for dinner and started running towards the counter. James had just picked up some smiley fries and was putting them on his plate when Casey came over and smacked his hand.

"You do not touch my smiley fries," she told him as she took the fries out of his hand and put them on her own plate. Derek looked at her and discreetly took some smiley fries from behind his back and came back to the table. I smiled at that. Derek came back down and sat back in his spot next to me.

"Apparently she likes smiley fries," he said. He held up his plate towards me. "You want some?"

"Yes," I said as I took a couple of fries. "These things are really good."

"They are," Derek said through a mouthful of chicken. Then he looked over at the counter and shielded his plate. I followed his gaze and saw Casey walking back to the table. Her plate was completely full of fries, both regular and smiley, mostly smiley though. She had at least 10 on her plate.

"Hey Chloe," she said as she came to sit on my other side.

"Uh… Hi. Are you really going to eat all of those?"

"Of course! I love fries! And I know, it's not healthy at all but I don't care one bit!" Casey said as she picked up the ketchup bottle and moved some fries out of the way to make room for the ketchup.

"That really is nasty," Julie said as she sat across from us.

"Shut up Julie," Casey snapped. She then turned to me. "She comments on everyone's eating habits, particularly werewolves."

"Well have you seen how much they eat?" Julie said. Then she gestured at Derek, who was stuffing his mouth full of fries. "Just look at Derek."

"You're not nice Julie," Derek said, his mouth still full of fries.

"Now that's disgusting," Julie said before turning back to her own plate.

"That what really annoys me about all the girls here," Casey said, shaking her head. "They think that everything is just disgusting or rude. I can't even burp out loud without having Claire or Libby yell at me!"

"Poor Casey," I said. "You have such a tough life."

"Thank you Chloe," she said, her mouth now also filled. James came over and sat down next to her then, another mountain of food on his plate.

"So aren't you excited for our shopping day tomorrow Casey?" he asked. Casey turned to face him.

"Shut up James," she said. "It's bad enough that we have to be at stores all day but tomorrow we have to go to clothing stores as well. At least at grocery stores you can get candy and snacks. All you can get at Kohl's and places is clothes. For me it's like a torture chamber."

"What?" I said. "Do you hate shopping or something?"

"Yes I do," Casey said, turning back to me. "Well, maybe despise is a better word. Clothes shopping is actually torture for me. That's why I'm not looking forward to tomorrow."

"Again, your life is so terrible," I said. We all talked for around an hour, eating all the fatty fried food the whole time. Eventually though, people started leaving the kitchen. Soon, only me, Derek, and Simon were left in the room.

"So are you happy about going shopping tomorrow?" I asked Simon.

"I am actually," he said. "I've gotten really tired of these jeans."

"That I can understand," I said, looking down at my own jeans. Claire had washed them for me yesterday but they were still pretty worn out. "Did Claire give you guys laptops too?"

"Yeah," Derek said. "Mine's in my room."

"Same here," Simon said. "She is such an awesome lady."

"She is," I said. "She's like the perfect mom to everyone."

"And a really good cook," Derek added. I laughed at that and so did Simon. How like Derek to compliment someone on their cooking. Then I heard some people in the TV room.

"Anyone want to watch TV?" I asked the guys. Derek grunted and Simon said yes so we all went into the other room. Casey, Julie, Alex, and Charlie were all watching TV. I went over and sat in one of the corners of a couch. I saw Simon practically run over to sit next to me and I had to stifle a laugh. He really did like me, a lot too, and I didn't really know what to make of it. I mean, I liked him, but as a friend or maybe a brother. It was Derek and my inner voice that were confusing me.

"What are you guys watching?" Simon asked, bringing me back to reality.

"Cake Boss," Charlie said.

"You seriously watch this?" Simon said.

"I told you guys that I like to watch stupid reality shows," Charlie replied. "Anything on TLC or Discovery is considered reality to me."

"Why do you like it though?" Simon asked him again.

"Because it involves cake," Casey said, not looking away from the TV. "And Italian people are hilarious."

"Exactly," Charlie said. "Thank you Casey."

"No prob," she replied, still not looking away from the TV.

"Well if it involves cake…" Simon said. He looked at the TV and started watching and I did the same. The show was actually pretty good. They made some really cool looking cakes and also were hilarious. The main people dumped a bunch of flour and other stuff on this one guy which was really funny. Then the mom of the main main guy freaked out and started yelling at him like a little kid. We watched like four episodes of it until Claire said that we should go to bed.

"We're going to be gone all day tomorrow so you might as well get a decent nice sleep," she said.

I usually would have protested against this, considering it was only 10, but I did find a bunch of games on my laptop that I had been wanting to play so I just snuck it and my iPod upstairs with me. Simon said goodnight to me before disappearing onto his room, which was closer to the stairs than mine. I was then left walking next to Derek, which I couldn't complain about, wait what? I reached my door and turned to him.

"Night Derek," I said.

"Good night Chloe," he said. His eyes found mine and I got that really weird feeling again. "See you in the morning."

"You too," I said, walking into my room and mentally slapping myself. _You too_, r_eally Chloe? How pathetic is that? __Very.__ Uhg, you again. __Hey I'll stop showing up if you just admit you like him._ I thought for a minute. I had just thought that I couldn't really complain about walking alone next to him. What was that about? And then that feeling I got when I looked at his eyes, maybe I really did like him. _Okay maybe you're right. __See!! I told you, I told you, I told you!__ I just said maybe, not yes. I'll think about it more tomorrow, when I'm alone in the house with him. __Yay! Okay I'll go now._

My inner voice went away and I decided to just go to bed and not mess with my laptop. I changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed. I put in my ear buds and turned on my iPod. I fell asleep thinking about spending tomorrow with Derek.

**Phew, that was a long chapter. So who liked it? Wasn't training exciting? And who wants Claire as their mom besides me? I love her and really wish she was my mom. I know Chloe gave in pretty easily but if I didn't do it soon, I would have lost a chance for her to finally sort of admit it. So the next chapter will be their day alone, who's excited? Me! Okay so I know this is random but I just noticed that I almost never make Chloe stutter and I don't really know why. I'll try to make her do it more but I'm not sure if it will work. Anyway, please, please review! They make me happy and motivate me to write the next chapter. So bye and I'll try to update soon. By the way, I do not go watch people sleep when I can't, but I do love smiley fries! Those things are addicting! So bye for real this time and please review!**


	12. Our day alone

**Thank you for reviewing people! I love you all! I know you guys might be kind of pissed off at me for that but, I really wanted you guys to review and like I said before, I wasn't going to keep writing just because of one person. By the way, thank you Burning Impossibly Bright for being to only one to review before I put up the review thing. So, I saw Shutter Island last night! It was actually not a good movie and the ending was not shocking at all. It was a lot like this one book I had to read for school. If anyone wants to hear what happens or just want to talk about the movie, PM me! My puppy got his stitches out on Friday and I okay for anyone who wants to know. He went swimming in our now unfrozen pond yesterday and today so now the whole house smells like wet dog. So did anyone else read the newest Reckoning chapter? If you have please tell me! All I can say right now for people who didn't read it is I still don't like Andrew, I was almost crying for stupid reasons, and oh my God I didn't see that coming! So I'll get to the chapter now. Sorry for the usual and I don't own Darkest Powers.**

I woke up to the light shining through my window. I sat up on the bed and looked at the time. 8:48. Wow, I actually got up at a reasonable time for a weekday. Then I remembered what was happening today. Derek and I would be together all day. Alone. In the house. With no one else around. I didn't know whether I should be excited for this, or whether I wanted to just hide in my room all day. I got up out of bed, grabbed some of Julie's borrowed clothes and a towel, and headed towards the bathroom to take a shower. Everyone would leave at 10:30 and I wanted to talk to people before then so I was in and out of the bathroom in 15 minutes. I then went downstairs. As soon as my foot touched the floor of the TV room, Simon came running up to me.

"Hi Chloe!" he said loudly. "You're up pretty early."

"Yeah I know," I said. Simon was really starting to annoy me with being so persistent on always talking to me. "So what did Claire make for breakfast?"

"Nothing," Simon said. I turned to face him with a confused look on my face. He laughed. "Calm down, there's still food. Frank went to go get doughnuts for you and Derek. The rest of us are eating at Denny's."

"Oh, what kind of doughnuts?"

"Um… let's see. I think we decided on six chocolate of some sort, three glazed, and three jelly-filled. Sound okay to you?"

"Yeah that's fine," I said, looking around the room. Almost no one was in there, just Derek, Tori, and Charlotte. "Where is everyone?"

"Well, Casey and Charlie went with Frank to get the doughnuts, apparently they would rather have those then Denny's, and Frank still doesn't trust anyone but James with a car. Jake was downstairs playing Call of Duty. Julie and Alex were down here earlier but I don't know where they went. Libby and Claire were doing laundry last I heard. Miles was watching Star Trek upstairs. I think everyone else is still sleeping."

"Alright then," I said, moving towards the couch, Simon following me. I plopped down in the corner, Simon sitting next to me. I suddenly had the urge to yell at him and tell him to stop following me, but stopped myself. It wouldn't be good if I yelled at him. I instead turned my head towards the TV. It was Arthur.

"Are you guys seriously watching Arthur?" I asked everyone else.

"Charlotte insisted," Tori said. "It actually is better than I remember."

"See!" Charlotte said. "I told you everyone loves Arthur on the inside!"

"Well not me," Derek said. "I have always disliked aardvarks that look like bears."

"Don't you dare insult Arthur!" Charlotte screamed at him. A small ball of water was floating near her hand. Derek seemed to notice this and laughed.

"Alright," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you would be so insulted by me calling Arthur a freak."

"Uhg!" Charlotte screamed as she swung her arm forward, towards Derek. The ball of water was flung towards him, too fast for him to dodge. The water ball hit Derek right in the face, soaking him, the couch, and Simon who was closest to him. Both Simon and Derek stood up and glared at Charlotte, Derek growling. They started trying to dry off, and then Tori and I burst into hysterical laughter at the exact same time. Simon and Derek glared at us but that made us laugh even harder. After only a couple seconds, Casey, Charlie, and Frank came into the room, Frank holding two white boxes. Casey looked from the fuming Charlotte, to the soaking wet Derek and Simon, and then to me and Tori laughing like idiots and immediately joined in. She fell onto the couch and laughed just as hard as we were. Charlie and Frank didn't seem to have any idea what was going on.

"What h- You know what, I don't want to know," Charlie said, taking on of the boxes from Frank and retreating into the kitchen. Frank followed him. Casey, Tori, and I kept laughing for several minutes before Charlotte went upstairs. I calmed down after that and remembered there was now food and ran into the kitchen. Charlie was sitting at one end of the table, a box of doughnuts on one side, and a half gallon of chocolate milk on the other. I saw the other box near the sink and got it, figuring it was meant for me and Derek. I got some milk, not from the one near Charlie, and sat down next to him.

"Are you just drinking that straight from the carton?" I asked.

"Yup," Charlie said, taking a sip from the carton to prove it. "Doesn't matter though, this is my chocolate milk, see?" He turned the thing around so the label faced me. Sure enough, there was a big sticker across the actual label that said "Charlie's. Do not touch, except for Charlie."

"Very funny. Why do you have your own thing of milk?"

"Claire didn't tell you?" I shook my head. "Well then. Each week, all of us get $15 to spend on any food or beverage that we want to keep for ourselves. I always get one of these," he held up the carton of chocolate milk. "and then some Oreos or something."

"Well that's awesome."

"I know!" Charlie said happily. He took another sip of milk before grabbing another doughnut from his box. He stuffed half of it in his mouth. Then he said, with his mouth still full, "Hey Derek." I turned around to see Derek walking into the kitchen. He was wearing a new shirt, that was dry, and well… it was different from what he usually wore. I think it might have been James' or someone else's because it wasn't baggy at all, in fact, it was maybe even a little tight. I looked away from him, blushing, and opened up the box of doughnuts, taking a chocolate one. Derek came and sat next to me, sliding the box towards him.

"This is ours right?" he asked, already taking one and bringing it to his mouth.

"Yeah," I said, still blushing.

"Hey Case!" Charlie yelled right next to my ear. I turned to glare at him but he didn't notice. "I'm eating all your doughnuts!"

"WHAT?!" Casey screamed from the TV room. It took her less that 10 seconds to run into the kitchen and snatch the box from Charlie. "How many times do I have to tell you not to touch my food? Next time, I'm stealing your milk." Charlie drew the milk carton towards him and put his arm around it protectively. I laughed and turned to mine and Derek's doughnut box, and saw three more were gone than the last time I looked. I looked up at Derek, who was still stuffing his face with a doughnut.

"How many did you eat?" I asked him. I glanced down at my own doughnut, only three or four bites missing off of it.

"I don't know," Derek said. "Five maybe."

"_Five_? That was only like a minute!"

"Yeah I know, maybe I should be a competitive eater." I laughed at that before taking the box away from him. "Hey, I'm not done!"

"Shut up," I said. "I'm just taking some before you eat them all." I took another chocolate and a glazed from the box and sat them down on the table in front of me, then I pushed the box back at him.

"Thank you," Derek said, already reaching for another.

I sat there at the table and talked with Derek, Charlie, and Casey for a long time. Everyone appeared eventually. James and Kyle tried to steal some of our doughnuts, which Derek protected rather viciously. Around 10:20, Claire and Libby came back from doing laundry upstairs. I asked about the $15 food thing then.

"Oh," she said after I finished asking. "That's right, I completely forgot. Okay so every week, we give each person 15 bucks to spend on whatever kind of food they want. That food is then theirs and no one can touch it or take it." Charlie began to prove this by modeling his "do not touch" label on his milk. "Thank you Charlie. So, is there anything that either of you want to eat that you don't want anyone else to have? Derek, since you're a werewolf, you get $20 to spend."

"That is so not fair," Casey whined.

"Shut up," James said, who was sitting next to her. "I let you have like half of the stuff I get anyway."

"Well you have to," Casey said. "You have no choice."

"Thank you guys," Claire said, before turning back to me and Derek. "So is there anything?"

Derek and I both told her what we wanted. Then Claire realized that it was almost 10:30 and started yelling at everyone to get ready to go. Charlie quickly chugged the last bit of his milk and shoved a last doughnut into his mouth before leaving. Soon, everyone was gone in both the kitchen and TV room except for me and Derek. I didn't really know what to say, so I just said, "Well this should be an entertaining day." I mentally kicked myself, I really need to think of better things to say.

"You're right there," Derek said. We sat in an awkward silence for a while, both of us nibbling on doughnuts, before Claire came into the room. She had a brown purse over one shoulder, and car keys in the opposite hand.

"Alright guys," she said. "We're leaving now. We should be back around 8 or 9. Are you sure you're going to be okay by yourselves?"

"Yes Claire," I said. "We'll be fine."

"Okay then, see you tonight." Claire then turned around and left. I heard a door slam a few moments later and figured that meant everyone had left. And I was officially alone with Derek.

"I can't believe they're going to spend almost 12 hours shopping," Derek said, shaking his head.

"Well do you know how long it takes girls to shop Derek?"

"Yes I do, and I don't understand it one bit."

"You know, for a genius, you know next to nothing about people."

"I've heard it before," he said, taking the last doughnut. "So what do you want to do?"

"I don't know," I said. As I began thinking about what we could do, my eyes began drifting towards Derek's tighter shirt. I realized this and shook my head, mentally kicking myself really hard this time. "How about looking at all the movies in that one room?"

"Figures that you would pick the movie thing."

"Does that mean you don't want to?"

"No, it's fine. I've been wanting to see what is in there anyway."

We left the kitchen and headed towards the home theater. Neither of us talked and it was still really awkward. We reached the theater and went into the personal Blockbuster. Even though I had seen the room before, I was still amazed by all the movies. I headed towards the comedy section, not sure why. Derek went back to the horror section, he really seemed to like those movies. I scanned the shelves, picking up anything that looked familiar or interesting. After a few minutes, Derek walked towards the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"You'll see," he said, disappearing into the theater. I never can understand him. About a minute later, Derek came back in. He threw something at me and I instinctively tried to catch it. But I missed. The thing bounced off my hand and landed like five feet away from me. I was getting up to get it, but Derek was already bending to pick it up. I realized that it was a Milky Way bar. Derek handed the candy to me.

"Thanks," I said. "Figures that you would leave to get food."

"So I like food," Derek said. "So what?"

"I'm just saying that only you would leave to get a candy bar."

"Actually," Derek said, smiling. "I got four." He held out his hand and I saw four bars in it. I rolled my eyes and went back to looking at the DVDs. I had been looking at an end-of-the-world movie when suddenly, my inner voice yelled _CHLOE!_ I almost threw the DVD box up in the air. _God, what do you want? __Aren't you supposed to be spending time with Derek? You said you would figure out if you really did like him or not today!__ Oh, yeah, I did say that didn't I. __Yes you did! Now stop trying to stall and stay away from him and just go talk to the man!__ Uhg, you're so annoying. __But I'm right, and you know I am.__As much as I hate to admit it, you are. But what am I supposed to say to him? __I don't know, ask him to watch a movie or something.__ That sounds like a date, and that would be weird. __Well do something. I'll talk to you again later._

I sat there thinking. What could Derek and I do that wouldn't be like really awkward or anything? Movie really wouldn't work, that would be extremely awkward. Just watching TV would be too. Uhg! This is so annoying. Luckily though, Derek brought up something by himself.

"Hey Chloe," he said. I stood up to look over the shelf at him. "No offense, but I'm getting bored. Do you want to go watch TV or something?"

"Sure," I said. Maybe it wouldn't be that awkward, if he suggested it himself. "I was getting a little bored too."

We left the home theater and walked towards the TV room. Halfway there, I tripped over my own feet. I prepared myself for the impact with the floor, but, like always, Derek caught me before I touched the ground. I looked up at his face. His eyes were on mine and I suddenly found it hard to form words.

"U-uh…" I began. "T-t-thanks, D-D-Derek." _Stupid stuttering!_ Derek swallowed before talking.

"N-no problem," he said. _Wait, did he just stutter? Mr. Always-Calm Souza stuttering? How is that possible?_ Derek set me back on my feet and then kept walking towards the TV room. I followed, still a little dazed. By the time I reached to doorway that led into the TV room, Derek was already seated on the couch, flipping through channels. I was about to sit down next to him when I figured I could mess around on my laptop some more.

"I'll be right back," I said. Derek just grunted. I walked upstairs and quickly found the laptop, still on the bedside table where I had put it last night. I grabbed it and turned it on then went back downstairs. Derek had already decided on a show, but I had no idea what it was.

"What is this?" I asked as I sat down on the couch by him.

"30 Days of Night," Derek said, looking over at me.

"And what is it about?"

"Vampires attack a small town in Alaska when it's dark for a month."

"Well that sounds exciting."

"So far it is," he said, looking back at the screen. "See, now they're just slaughtering everyone in sight."

"Thank you for that Derek," I said before looking back at my computer screen. I brought the internet up and decided that I might as well check my emails. I wouldn't have to send anything back, but I could at least see what my friends were doing and if they missed me. I signed in and immediately saw the inbox count, 78. Wow, it had only been like a month, less than that since I had checked last. I sighed as I clicked open the inbox. The last email had been sent five days ago, from my friend Kari. I tried to think about where I was then. It would have been just after the picture of me and Derek had been put in the paper. I quickly opened up the email and read it.

_Chloe, where are you? Please, please answer this email, I'm really worried about you. I saw your picture with that guy in the paper and am just really freaked out. Please tell me that you haven't been kidnapped. Chloe, what happened? Where are you? We're all so worried about you. Especially your dad. He probably hasn't slept in a week. He's been-_

I stopped reading then. I really didn't need to hear about how worried my dad was. I knew he was worried, why else would he put up a half a million dollars for my rescue? And I was worried about him to. I didn't know if the Edison Group would go after him and try to use him to get me to come out of hiding. I would be devastated if they did that, especially since I know I couldn't do anything. I clicked out of the window and closed the laptop, not wanting to be reminded of my father anymore. I turned to face the TV screen, where a bunch of people were all sitting I an attic, not talking. I watched silently until Derek's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Chloe," he said. "What's wrong?"

"N-n-nothing," I said, surprised at how weak I sounded. I brought my hands up to my face to try to shield it from Derek. My hands touched wetness, and I realized I had been crying. I just buried my face into my hands then, and tried ignore Derek. It didn't work. He kept asking me what was wrong over and over again until he finally just came over to me.

"Chloe," he said as I felt him sit down next to me. He gently grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands away from my face. I just dropped my head, not wanting to see his face. He quickly let go of one of my wrists and brought his now free hand to my face, lifting it to his. I looked up at him just long enough to see the worry in his eyes, then tried to turn my face away. He wouldn't let me. "Chloe, please tell me what's wrong."

"Just forget about it Derek," I said, still trying to turn my head.

"No Chloe. You're crying, and I'm pretty sure it's not from the movie, so things are obviously not alright. Now please, tell me." I looked back at his face and I just couldn't stand the look on it.

"Fine," I said. "I j-just looked at my email a-a-and read one f-from my friend a-a-and…" I started crying harder then. I gulped and continued. "S-s said that everyone was w-w-worried about me a-a-and how my d-dad was really worried a-a-and…" I couldn't finish. I started crying even harder then and turned my face to look at the floor. Derek didn't seem to know what to do. He dropped the hand that was on my face and grabbed my hand.

"Chloe," he said. "It's okay, it's okay. Your dad's going to be fine. He's just worried. No one knows what happened to you, so they're imagining the worst. People do that when they get scared, even if it's something minor. I did it myself when Simon and I found out our dad was gone. I went through all sorts of really bad scenarios, almost all of them involving his death. But now I know that he's still alive, just locked up somewhere by the Edison Group. Eventually, your dad will see that you're okay as well. Chloe look at me." I brought my face up to look at Derek. "It's alright. Nothing is going to happen to him. No one would touch a man who's in the news constantly and offering half a million dollars to have his daughter returned to him. Not even the Edison Group." I nodded and began wiping away the tears on my face.

"Thank you Derek," I said, staring at his eyes. Then, before I could stop myself, I reached up and hugged him. He tensed at first but then put his arms around me as well. "It means a lot."

"No problem," Derek said. We sat there for about a minute, before I pulled away. I smiled at him and he smiled back. Then the whole mood was then ruined by hysterical screaming coming from the TV. I looked at the screen to see a lady getting attacked by a vampire, then back to Derek. I started laughing and he did as well. _See! You do like him! Please just admit it! How can you not after that?!__ Alright, alright, I like Derek. __As more than a friend?__ Yes, more than a friend. __And you aren't just saying this to make me shut up?__ No, I mean it. And don't you know everything about me? You should have known I meant it. __I only know what you're feeling, not whether not you know it or if you mean it.__ Well I do, but I'm not going to do anything about it. __WHAT?!! You have to! Did you see how worried he was when you were crying? He loves you! Just tell him you feel the same!__ NO! That would be so weird and I don't even know if he like me or not, and I'm not risking ruining our friendship. __Uhg! I am not done with you!_ _Well for now you are, so leave._

I went back to watching the movie, which was really violent. People got attacked by a vampire like every five minutes, all very bloody deaths. Derek seemed to like that though and was smiling like an idiot every time someone died. _Are you sure that's why he's smiling? __God, just go away!_ The movie got kind of depressing during the end. The main characters brother was missing for a while and that really upset me, he was an awesome guy! Then when he showed up again, I was happy but then the main character willingly turned himself into a vampire to kill all the other vampires and save the last few people. Then he died when the sun came up and I was mad at the stupid ending.

"I hate it when movies do this," Derek said, shaking his head. "It's no fun when everyone dies."

"Tell me about it!" a voice came from behind the couch. Derek and I both jumped and turned around to see an astral projection of Casey.

"What the hell Casey!" Derek said. "How long have you been there?"

"For the last few minutes, I like this movie," Casey said. "And I agree with you about the no fun when everyone dies thing. Like in Knowing, the whole world ends on my birthday! It was so depressing!"

"Why are you even here?" I asked.

"Claire wanted me to check and make sure you guys are okay. I'm guessing you are, since no one is missing a limb or anything, unlike in this movie! Well, I should go! Bye!" And she disappeared.

"That is one weird girl," Derek said.

"Yeah," I said. "She watches people sleep when she can't."

"Okay that's just creepy."

"Especially when you wake up and she's floating right next to you.

"And you would know this how?"

"Two nights ago I woke up from a dream and she was right there."

"Yeah that would be really creepy."

"Yup," I said. I didn't really know what to say next, so I just said something random. "Hey Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have an email?"

"I don't think you really have to email me things Chloe, we're sort of in the same house all the time."

"Yeah I know that. I meant for after all this is over and we leave this house. If we ever do."

"We will but the answer is no, I don't have an email."

"Well then we should make you one!"

"I don't want an email. I'd never use it."

"Not even to talk to me?" I said, using a puppy dog face. It worked.

"Uhg, fine. Make me an email account."

"Yay!" I said. I picked up the laptop and sat back down next to him. "Okay, so what do you want it on?"

"What?"

"What site do you want it from? Like there's hotmail, live, Gmail, stuff like that."

"I don't care."

"Well you have to choose one."

"Fine, hotmail then."

"Okay," I said. I brought up the hotmail main page and clicked the sign up thing. "So what do tou want your name to be?"

"I don't care Chloe."

"Fine, then I'll just use Wolfman532."

"Why 532?"

"I don't know, I just picked those numbers. Do you want to change it?"

"No, you do what ever you want."

"Alright, then it's going to be Wolfman532." I typed in that for the user name and then handed Derek the laptop.

"What's this for? I thought you were doing it for me?"

"Do you want me to make up a password for you too?"

"Oh… that's a good point," Derek said. He turned to the screen and typed a few things, then handed the laptop back to me. I typed in his name and other stuff, then stopped at the zip code thing.

"What are we supposed to put for zip code?"

"I don't know," Derek said, shrugging. "We don't really live anywhere documented."

"Yeah," I said. "Oh well, I'll just use Buffalo." I typed in the zip code for Buffalo and then clicked the finish button. The screen changed to one that said "Welcome Derek." It had a bunch of random stuff on it that I ignored. I found the contacts list and added myself, then turned the laptop over to Derek. "There, now you change it to look whatever way you want."

"Alright," Derek said. He pressed a couple of random buttons, then flipped the laptop closed. "Finished."

"You didn't even do anything."

"Exactly, I told you I didn't care. But I am hungry, I'm getting lunch."

"You just ate like 10 doughnuts like two hours ago!"

"It was actually three and a half hours, and only 9 doughnuts," he said as he got up off the couch, turning back around to face me. "Are you coming or just going to watch TV?"

"I'll eat," I said, sighing and getting up as well. I followed Derek into the kitchen and sat at the table. "So… Simon said you can cook."

"He did?" Derek asked turning around to face me.

"Yeah, and can you?"

"I can make a few things," he said. "But right now, I just want a sandwich."

"Make me one with peanut butter please!"

"You can make your own sandwich Chloe."

"That doesn't mean I want to."

"Well I'm not making anything for you."

"You suck," I said as I got up and went towards the pantry. I found the peanut butter and some bread and brought it out to the table. I grabbed a knife and a paper towel and went back to the table. I watched Derek as made my sandwich. He was trying to find something in the fridge so he had his back turned to me. He then found whatever he was looking for and closed the door, turning back around. He saw me staring at him and said "What?"

"Oh, uh… Nothing, just kind of zoned out," I said, looking back down at my sandwich. I had just finished it when Derek came over to the table.

"Are you done with that?" he asked, pointing at the peanut butter and bread. I was about to say yes when suddenly an idea formed in my mind. I picked up the peanut butter, screwed the lid back on, picked up the bread and walked back to the pantry. I put the bread and peanut butter back where I found them, grabbed a bag of Tostitos and walked out.

"No I'm done," I said happily to Derek, opening the bag of Tostitos and sitting down to eat my sandwich.

"Why'd you do that?"

"You wouldn't make me a sandwich, so you can get your own bread and peanut butter."

"You're mean," Derek said as he walked to get the stuff from the pantry.

"Thank you," I said before stuffing some chips into my mouth. Derek made his sandwich, just a regular PB and J, and sat down across the table from me. He reached over and pulled the bag of chips away from me.

"I wasn't done with those."

"Well I want some, you can have the right back," Derek said, taking two handfuls and stuffing half of one in his mouth. He then pushed the bag back at me, saying something that sounded vaguely like "Rear ro row" through his full mouth. I made and annoyed face and rolled my eyes, then took some more chips. Derek and I sat at the table for a while, just eating in silence, again. Eventually the silence just became too much for my stupid inner voice. _Why the hell aren't you talking to him?!__ 'Cause I'm eating. __No you're not, you've already finished your food, look._ I looked down at the paper towel I had had my sandwich on and sure enough, it was empty. _Well, he's still eating so I don't see why I have to start up a conversation. __Are you blind? He's done too. And he's staring right at you.__ What? No he isn't._ I looked back up from my paper towel and looked at Derek. His sandwich was also gone, and he was staring at me. It kind of creeped me out so I said, "What?"

"Oh, uh… Nothing," Derek said, looking away from me. I had to stifle a laugh, it was exactly the same thing I said when he caught me looking at him. He then stood up and went over to the fridge. He grabbed something and turned around to look at me. He held up a can of Coke. "Want one?"

"Sure," I said, getting up to go back to the TV room. I dropped down on the couch and grabbed the remote. I started flipping and saw that the movie Volcano was on so I turned it on. It was just to the part when the tar pit was beginning to turn into a volcano. Derek walked over and sat down next to me. He handed me my Coke before looking at the screen.

"What is this?"

"Volcano, you seriously couldn't guess from that?" I asked, pointing at the tar pit that was now spewing big globs of lava.

"Yes I can tell that it's a volcano movie, I just didn't know what it was called." We opened our pops and drank them while watching. When that one girl just stood there when her leg was being burned, Derek started laughing.

"How is that funny to you?" I asked.

"This kid's supposed to be 13 and she's not only carrying a teddy bear, but just standing there screaming for her dad to come put out the fire on her leg. That's just pathetic. No one would actually do that."

"How do you know? There has never been a real volcano in a city. Maybe people really would just stand there, frozen with fear."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Derek said, turning back to the screen. I sighed and went back to messing with the laptop. I was not going to look at my email again, just maybe play some of the games. I found the games folder and opened up solitaire. I played that while watching Volcano. Derek just sat there, not saying anything, through the whole movie. It was kind of weird, but that was how Derek usually was, so I just left him alone. The movie ended after a while, and some really weird looking movie came on. Derek and I both lunged for the remote at the same time. Derek grabbed the remote first but, even though I knew I could never get it away from him, I tried to pry his hand off. He started laughing.

"Seriously Chloe?" he asked, still laughing and holding his hand tight around the remote. "You can' take the remote from me."

"That doesn't mean, I can't try," I said, still trying to yank the remote from Derek's hand. He just kept laughing, and eventually just pulled it away from my hand. I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms across my chest. Derek just laughed some more and started flipping through channels. I saw that the time was already 4:30. _Huh, that went by fast. __That's because you-__ Oh just shut up, I know what you're going to say. It's because I'm with Derek. And I'm not going to argue with it about it. __Well-wait did you say you weren't going to argue.__ No, you're right, and always have been, I've just been in denial. __Wow, I never thought you would agree with me about something.__ Now will you leave me alone? __No, I'll just stop bugging you as much._

"How's this?" Derek said, bringing me out of my inner argument. I looked up at the TV screen, seeing the guide and Dirty Jobs highlighted.

"Sure," I said. Derek turned it on and Mike was blowing up something. We watched until the show ended, then neither of us could find anything to watch, so we turned off the TV. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

"Um…" Derek said, thinking. "You want to go see what kind of games there are downstairs?"

"As long as we don't play Mario Kart again," I said, getting up off the couch. We both walked over to the basement and went down the stairs. I found the stash of game boxes and started looking through them. Derek joined me and also started flipping through the large number of games. After a while, Derek held up a box.

"How 'bout this?" he said jokingly. I took the box and looked at it. There were these really creepy bunnies on the front that were doing a bunch of weird things. The game was called Raving Rabbids.

"No," I said, throwing the box back at him.

"You didn't even look at the back, it looks like fun."

"You think something looks like fun? Fine let's play it."

"Cool," Derek said, jumping to his feet. HE held out his hand to help me up and I took it. As soon as I was standing, he let go and turned on the Wii. He started the game, and I immediately regretted saying yes to playing it. The creepy bunnies were doing even weirder things, but Derek didn't seem to notice. There were only three profiles on the screen, one Casey, Jake, and then Other. Derek clicked the Other one and then multiplayer. He grabbed another remote and two nun chucks, handing one of each to me.

"Great," I said, taking them. "So how do we play?"

"I think that depends on the game that is chosen," Derek said, pointing his remote at the screen. I looked at it as well and saw more of the creepy bunny creatures running around. Then the screen changed to a how to play screen and Derek clicked the how to play button. A creepy bunny appeared that was sitting on its butt on the balance board thing. It was moving from side to side with a really creepy expression on its face.

"So we have to play by sitting on the boardy thing?" I asked, still not quite sure how to play.

"Yeah," Derek said. "You lean from side to side to steer whatever it is we're steering and the lean back for a speed boost."

"How do you know that?"

"I read the words next to the pictures."

"Oh…" I said, looking next to the bunny and seeing the written instructions. "Well, you can go first then."

"Alright," Derek said, pulling out the balance board from between the TV and the wall. He put it on the ground and turned it on before sitting down on it. "Well this should be interesting."

"Very," I said, trying to picture Derek doing what that bunny had earlier. I had to stifle a laugh. Just then, a bunny, that was supposedly Derek, dropped down onto the screen, on top of some moose like animal.

"What the hell?" Derek said. He was still staring at the moose thing when 3-2-1 started flashing across the screen. Then something screamed GO and Derek completely messed up the start. He started leaning backwards for a speed boost and the moose thing made a really disturbing noise before shooting forward. Derek kept leaning backwards and tried to lean side to side to steer, but it didn't work. He almost fell over a bunch of times, making me laugh hysterically. Derek kept swearing at the screen the entire time, yelling at the moose thing to go faster, although not nearly that nicely. Eventually, he got to the finish line and stood up, glaring the screen. I laughed even harder when I saw how badly he did. "Shut up Chloe."

"No, it's hilarious!" I said, still laughing.

"Well I want to see you do better," Derek said. He pointed at the board and I sat down on it happily, hoping I could actually beat him at something. He started up the game again and I started my turn. It was actually really easy, for me anyway. I could see how someone as big as Derek could have trouble trying to do this but it was no problem for me. I finished much quicker than Derek had and stood up, beaming.

"I win!" I yelled at him.

"What? That is so not fair, I want a rematch."

"It is to fair and you're not getting a rematch. Let's just play the next game."

"Fine," Derek said, glaring at the screen once again. Apparently, he's a really sore loser. He started up the next game and tried playing that.

Derek and I played the Raving Rabbids game until 8:30. I won almost all of the games, Derek winning only about 5. He kept trying to beat me though, so we didn't stop playing I realized that everyone was going to be home soon. We got off the Wii and went back upstairs to watch some TV and get some snacks. I just grabbed a bag of Goldfish while Derek took a whole bag of Doritos. We watched Mythbusters until 9:00. By that time, Derek had already finished his Doritos and was stealing some of my Goldfish. Then everyone came back home.

"Hey bro, Chloe," Simon said as he walked into the room. "How was your day?"

"Fine," I said, rolling my eyes at Derek's usual grunt. "How was shopping?"

"Fun!" Tori yelled as she ran past Simon. "I got so many new things! Chloe you're going to love what we got you."

"_You_ picked out my clothes?" I asked, suddenly very scared.

"No," Tori said, sounding depressed. "Simon told me I couldn't. Charlotte, Julie, Claire, and Ann picked out your stuff."

"Good, thanks Simon."

"No problem Chloe! Oh my God, you should see how much food we bought! There were at least four cartfuls!"

"What? Seriously?" Derek said, suddenly perky at the mention of food. I laughed.

"Yeah," Simon said. "And I got you what I think you needed and wanted."

"Thanks," Derek said before turning back to the screen and taking the bag of Goldfish from me.

"Hey! I was still eating those!"

"Alright," Derek said, handing the bag back to me and smiling. "Have them."

"Thank you ver-" I began before looking into the bag and finding only crumbs. "You suck."

"That's not nice."

"Uhg," Casey said as she and James walked into the room. She plopped down on the couch next to me. "That was horrible. Next time, I'm staying home with you guys."

"I guess shopping didn't go well for you?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" Tori said. "She complained the whole day. I can't see why though, shopping is so much fun!"

"Shut up Tori," Casey said. She turned to me. "I had to spend 6 hours in clothing stores. 6! That is like six months of torture for me. And it wasn't even me that was buying stuff! Then stupid James and Charlie got to go to Gander Mountain to buy stuff for the yard with Frank but Claire wouldn't let me go with! She said she needed all the girls there to help pick stuff out. I didn't though, just sat in a corner texting Nikki."

"Who's Nikki?" Simon asked, coming over to sit by Derek.

"She's an awesome shaman!" Casey said. "I love Nikki. She lives like two hours away from here though. Her and her parents come to all the meetings though, sometimes we go to her house for them. Anyway, she is just awesome. She's like really quiet but has an evil mind. I wouldn't be surprised if she took over the world one day."

"Wow," Simon said. "She sounds… interesting."

"Aww," I said. "Does Simon have a crush on a girl he's heard about once?"

"No!" Simon yelled, now blushing. "She just sounds cool, that's all."

"Sure," Tori said. "Anyway, I'm going to go put all my stuff away. If you want Chloe, I'll show you where your stuff is."

"Why not," I said getting up off the couch. Tori led me into classroom, that was now just a sea of shopping bags. A lot of people were still unloading things from the car. Claire saw me and smiled.

"Hi Chloe," she said. "Were you and Derek okay being alone all day?"

"Yes Claire," I said. I had known her for less than a week and she was already taking on the Mom roll in my life. "We were fine."

"Good, well your stuff is right there and you'll get your private stash of food probably tomorrow or later tonight if we put things away quickly."

"Thanks," I said, tuning to the pile of bags she had pointed to. There were only five, compared to Tori's eleven. I tried to balance all the bags so I could bring them up in one trip and succeeded, but barely. I left Tori trying to get Charlie to help her bring her bags up, but I don't think that was ever going to work. I got all my bags upstairs without them all falling and set everything in my room.

I started looking through all the bags and finding places to put different things. By the time everything was put away, it was 11:00. I decided to just go to bed so I got out my new cow themed pajamas and put them on. I turned off the light, slipped under the covers on my bed, and fell asleep.

**So did everyone like it? Did **_**anyone**_** like it? I know it probably wasn't what you were expecting, but it was still good right? And it was really long! This one chapter is almost the length of an entire story that I had to write for school! So that game Derek and Chloe were playing, I love it! It's so much fun and hysterical to watch people play. It's called Raving Rabbids TV Party. And the both of the movies I watched during the weekend. 30 Days of Night was hilarious because of how much blood and gore there was and also the really badly played vampires. Volcano I've seen a lot of times but I like it so I put it in the story. Also, I like the Discovery Channel if you haven't already guessed that! Please, please, please review! All I want is five, that's it. Reviews make me really happy so any extra would also be nice. So I hoped you**


	13. School and Swimming

**Hey peoples! Okay, I just want to make sure that people know that this is not Derek and Chloe's day alone. That was last chapter and I replaced the review thing with the actual chapter, so if you didn't read it before, go and read it now please! Yeah and in case you guys didn't notice, I made up actual names for the chapters, I was just bored and need something to do. I know some of them suck but I was getting tired of just Chapter 13 and all the other numbers. Hehe, it's Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family! Today there is 14 full hours of Harry Potter on! YAY! I quoted like the entire 1****st**** movie and my dad is starting to do the same thing! It's hysterical because he's usually the one to yell at me for saying all the lines. Also, it's Ben 10 week on Cartoon Network and I'm going to watch it! Every episode I watch Kevin reminds me more and more of Derek. I convinced one of my friends to watch some episode too which she's going to do later today! Anyway, I forgot to mention this last chapter, Nikki, the person Casey was texting, is another one of my friends who is awesome and probably the most like me. She is super quiet but extremely random in a really funny way. She'll come into the story in a few chapters. Did anyone read chapter 8 of the actual Reckoning? Please, if you did, PM me because I really need to talk about it with someone and I don't want to give anything away! Uhg, the weather is so weird! So yesterday, I was at my freind's house filming something for school (a hilarious commercial that involved getting covered in flour, throwing popcorn at Robert Pattinson, and then throughing Monopoly pieces and money at each other!) and it was like 60 degrees and we were outside barefoot and playing on the swing set (I know that's stupid but it was a really nice day and we were outside so who cares!) and this morning, the entire ground was covered in snow and it was blowing around like crazy. There was so much that my dad and I had to go outside and wipe off the satalite dish so I could watch Harry Potter! I wish spring would just stay, I'm tired of stupid wet snow! Okay, one last question, has anyone seen Sweeny Todd, the one with Johnny Depp in it? My friend told me about it and how violent it was and i want to see it now but i'm not sure how bad it is. If you saw it, do you think that it is okay for a 14 year old to watch with her dad if neither of them cares about violence or an occasional swear word? Please tell me if you think it is! So, here's the chapter and I hope you like it. Please ignore any spelling or grammar errors that may appear. Darkest Powers does not belong to me or anyone else besides the awesome Kelly Armstrong.**

I woke up to the sound of running feet in the hallway, laughter, and screaming.

"James!" Casey screamed. "Give it back!" Someone else, supposedly James, started laughing hysterically and kept running. They then ran past my door and after a few seconds, the footsteps faded. I groaned before rolling over to get out of bed and look at the clock. It said 9:12. _Thank you Casey,_ I thought. I could have slept for like another two hours! I changed into some of my new clothes, a pair of jeans and a light green shirt. I brushed my hair before opening the door and stepping outside. I turned towards the stairs and saw James running back down the hall, still laughing and holding something in his hand. He passed me and then Casey came running up the stairs after him, still screaming. She stopped at my door, panting.

"What happened?" I asked.

"James stole my copy of The City of Bones," Casey said, glaring down the hall after James.

"I read that, it was pretty good."

"I know! It was amazing. And I love Jace, he actually reminds me a lot of James. Anyway, I really need to get that book back."

"Why can't James look at it?"

"He can look at it as long as it's in my room. But, the last three times he's taken a book out of my room, it mysteriously got severely damaged. And right now he's just doing that to annoy me, but I still want my book back. Will you help me?"

"I guess," I said, following the already running Casey down the hall.

"James! James where are you?" Casey screamed constantly. He wasn't anywhere upstairs so we went downstairs to look. Simon was sitting at the kitchen table when we ran into the TV room.

"Chloe, hey!" he said. "What are you doing?"

"Helping Casey look for James. Want to help?" I said, still running after Casey, who was heading towards the dining room.

"Uh… I'm good," Simon said, turning back to his cereal. Casey and I kept searching for James until we ran into Derek in the gym. He was running on a treadmill, in some of his new clothes, at least I think they were new.

"He's hiding in the pool room," Derek said, still running.

"Uhg," Casey said before running to the door that led outside. I followed, looking at Derek on the way over.

"Thanks Derek," I said. He just grunted. I kept running after Casey. We reached the pool room, where she stopped.

"Okay," Casey whispered. "I'll go in because I know how to sneak up on James. You stay here incase he makes a break for it. This is the only easy access exit so he can't get away. Bye." She quietly opened up the door and disappeared inside. In about a minute, I could hear some muffled yells before Casey came running out, book in hand. She turned around and beckoned for me to follow her. I looked back at the pool room, where James' figure was quickly coming towards the door. I ran after Casey, but James soon outran me. He just smiled at me though, and kept running after Casey, who was already at the garage. I gave up running after that and went towards the back door. I got inside and headed back towards the kitchen. Simon was still eating when I got there.

"Hey," I said, sitting down next to him.

"Hi," Simon said through a mouthful of Cheerios. He swallowed and continued. "What was that about?"

"Oh, James stole one of Casey's books and she asked me to help get it back. Is there any other cereals?"

"Only like every major type, back of the pantry, second shelf from the bottom."

"Thanks," I said, getting up to get a box. I found some Lucky Charms and took those. I put some in a bowl with some milk and got a spoon before sitting back down next to Simon. I had just eaten the first spoonful when James and Casey came in.

"Ooo, food," James said before disappearing into the pantry. Casey glared after him and then sat across the table from Simon, taking the box of Lucky Charms and eating them right from the box. I turned to Simon.

"So… what are we doing today?" I asked.

"Well," Simon began. "We could have a Mario Kart tournament." I shook my head. "Or watch some movies."

"Yes!" I said happily. I was about to start suggesting some movies when James sat down with a huge bowl of cereal and Casey interrupted me.

"Sorry to ruin your plans guys," she said. "But on Wednesday and Thursday we have school sessions."

"WHAT?!" Simon and I exclaimed at the same time.

"Relax, it's not that bad. More of an entertainment than school. We just sit and listen to Frank and Claire talk for like an hour and a half. We almost never have to do any work, just listen."

"How is that entertaining?" Simon asked. Casey smiled mischievously.

"You'll see," she said in an evil tone. Then she perked up. "Anyway, since you guys all have suits now, we were planning on going swimming. You in?"

"Sure," Simon said. I agreed as well then resumed eating. After a few minutes, Claire came in.

"Alright guys," she said. "We're starting class at 11:00 so you have around an hour to do whatever you want."

"Thanks Claire," Simon said. He turned to me again.

"So what do you want to do in an hour?" I thought for a second before an amazingly evil idea came to mind.

"I think I'm going to try to freak out Derek," I said, smiling evilly.

"And how are you going to do that?"

"I'll tell you in a second. Want to help?" He nodded and I looked over at Casey. "Hey Casey, do you have an email?"

"Yeah, why?" she said through a mouthful of cereal.

"Is it something random that doesn't involve your name?"

"Yup, coastercrazy and then some numbers. But why?"

"Can I use it? I'm going to try to freak out Derek."

"That sounds exciting!" Casey said, sitting up straighter. "As long as I can help, you can use it."

"Thanks, now go get your laptop," I said. She immediately got up and ran upstairs. Simon turned to me with a questioning look on his face. "Not now, Derek might hear. We'll go in the DVD room or something."

"Okay," he said. Then he went over to the pantry and came out with some fruit snacks.

"Seriously Simon, fruit snacks?"

"Hey, they're good," he said, shrugging and dumping half the bag into his mouth. I shook my head and waited for Casey to come back. She ran into the TV room about a minute later with a light turquoise colored laptop.

"Got it!" she yelled, holding up the laptop. She came into the kitchen and sat back down. "So what are we doing?"

"First we have to go somewhere Derek can't hear. Know any place?" Casey tuned to James who looked up.

"Well if he's still in the gym, I would say the projector room in the theater," he said.

"Thanks James!" Casey said, running over and hugging him. "And you won't mention this to Derek?"

"No, you know how much I like messing with people."

"You're the best," Casey said. She then turned to me and Simon. "Are we going?"

"Yes," I said, already getting up to leave. We walked towards the theater, tiptoeing to make sure Derek couldn't hear. We got into the projection room and sat down on the floor.

"So what are we doing?" Simon said, obviously anxious. He was practically bouncing. I laughed before telling them my plan.

"So yesterday," I began. "I made Derek an email account because I was bored. So I was thinking that we make either an extremely odd and random email or something that supposedly comes from some stalker guy and send it to him. I doubt he's ever going to check it but I'll do something to make him look at it. Do you think it will work?"

"Yeah," Simon said, nodding. "That is exactly the type of thing that would creep him out."

"I like it," Casey said. "So what are we going to do? Random and weird or stalkerish murderer?"

"How 'bout both?" Simon said. Casey and I both agreed and we turned on the laptop. Casey logged onto her email and gave the computer to me. I brought up a message thing and typed in Derek's email name.

"So how should we start this?" I asked. We all began planning out a really random one first then a stalker one. They took a pretty long time so I only had about five minutes to compose an email myself that would force Derek to check his email. I just typed some more random things that were sort of entertaining then pressed send. Just as I was turning off the laptop, Claire's voice came over the intercom, saying it was school time.

"Oh joy," Simon said, getting up. He offered a hand to help me up but I didn't take it. That was something Derek did for me, not Simon. I was going to have to tell Simon I wasn't interested in him eventually, but I didn't really know how to. Casey, Simon, and I all walked over to the classroom. Frank, Claire, Alex, Charlotte, Jacob, and Kyle were already in there. I sat down at one of the desks that were all arranged in groups of four. Simon sat by me while Casey went over to sit by Alex and Charlotte. After a few seconds, Charlie came running in and sat by Jake. They looked at each other before they started humming to the tune of Livin' on a Prayer. Then Jake started singing.

"Woah, life's not fair. Woah, the teacher has blonde hair."

"Uh, what the hell?" Simon said. Charlie started cracking up then and Claire glared. Jake saw this and stopped laughing.

"Sorry Mom," he said. "But you have to admit it was funny."

"I thought it was," James said as he came into the room and sat by Charlie and Jake.

"James you think anything is funny," Kyle said.

"Not everything, but most things yes. And you think that a lot of things are funny too Kyle so shut up."

"Stupid," Kyle said, pulling up his legs to they were lying across his desk.

"I thought it was funny Jake," Casey said. "And yes Kyle, I do think many things are funny. Even after a week things are still funny to me. Like when the a-a-alien j-jumps out a-a-a-and." She started cracking up during the last sentence and I couldn't understand any of the last half. She didn't stop laughing until Julie came in and smacked her on the back of the head.

"Shut up," she said before sitting down. Derek came in next and sat down next to Simon, behind me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi," Simon said. He looked like he was about to burst out laughing. His attempt at containing a laugh was contagious and soon I was doing the same thing. Derek looked from one of us to the other with a really confused and amused look on his face. Simon soon just gave up and cracked up and I soon did the same. Everyone started looking at us.

"Are you guys laughing about what I think you're laughing about?" Casey asked. I nodded and she started laughing too. Derek was looking even more confused.

"What are you laughing about?" he asked.

"N-n-nothing," Simon said, still laughing. That made me laugh harder and I couldn't stop for like a minute. Then Tori came in and sat next to me.

"Great, learning," she said.

"Now that everyone is here," Frank said. "We can begin teaching! Come on guys. YAY!" We all repeated the "yay" unenthusiastically. "Thank you. So, Math or English?"

"Math!" Charlie said.

"Charlie wants to do math?" Julie asked, confused.

"I have something special planned for it," Charlie said, winking.

"Then I guess its math," Claire said. "So we're going to do some more stuff with polynomials." Claire then launched into a very thrilling explanation of how to multiply polynomials. Towards the end, when Claire was turned around writing stuff on the white board, Charlie stood up on the desk and started singing the same weird version of Livin' on a Prayer. Everyone started laughing because it was just such a random time and Charlie was waving his hands above his head like an idiot. Claire got kind of pissed off at him, but that didn't stop her from laughing. She finished her lecture and then it was Frank's turn.

"You guys are lucky today," he said. "All we're going to do is Word Masters. I know we aren't in the competition but who doesn't love Word Masters?" Simon raised his hand. "Yes Simon?"

"What are Word Masters?" he asked.

"They're a bunch of words that you have to learn the definitions of and are all put together to make up a big analogy test," Kyle said.

"Exactly Kyle," Frank said. He turned back to Simon. "Does that make sense? They're basically just vocab words."

"Yeah, thanks," Simon said.

"Okay, so go get your definitions of the words guys, except you four," Frank said, pointing at me, Tori, Simon, and Derek. "You didn't do any so you don't have to, just watch everyone else."

"Okay," I said. Everyone besides us got up and headed towards the cabinets, where they each got a notebook. Once everyone had returned to their seats, Frank spoke again.

"So, we're going to make up some more gestures for the last half of the words. Work with the people in your little groups, Kyle go work with the guys."

"Uhg, fine," Kyle said, moving over to where James, Charlie, and Jacob were sitting. They all began talking about words and doing some weird hand gestures. I looked behind me to talk to Derek and Simon.

"So, this is really interesting," I said.

"Yeah, very thrilling," Simon said. He looked over to Derek who didn't seem to be paying attention. Simon waved his hand in from of Derek's face. "Earth to Derek, are you there?" Derek slapped Simon's hand away.

"Yes I'm here," he said. "I'm just trying to listen to what they're all doing. What I heard was, well interesting to say the least."

"Great," Tori said. "I swear, this is the weirdest group of people I have ever been with."

"Thanks Tori!" James yelled from his seat. Tori rolled her eyes. "So what are we doing today?"

"Casey said we were going to go swimming after class," I said.

"Really?! I've been dying to go swimming!" Tori said. She started talking about her swim suit and how cute it was. I just tuned her out as always and turned back to the guys.

"Are you going to come swimming Derek?" I asked, thinking about him in just trunks. _Bad Chloe, don't think about that._

"I guess," he said. "There isn't much else to do."

"Cool," Simon said. He started talking about some weird past experiences with pools while everyone finished making up gestures. Eventually, Frank stopped them.

"Alright," he said. "That should be long enough. So, who wants to go first for duplicity?"

"We do!" Charlie yelled. He and James stood up and held their hands and started moving them like mouths. Then they flipped their hands around so they were "talking" the other way. Then they both started dancing really weirdly and saying "crabs" over and over.

"Thank you boys," Frank said, sounding a little freaked out. "Girls, please tell me you have something better."

"Well all we have is this," Charlotte said. She started like moving her mouth and making friendly hand gestures like she was talking to someone she liked. Then she turned around and started making weird faces and fake gagging, like she was saying something bad about the person she had been talking about.

"Thank you Charlotte," Frank said. "Now let's vote on the better one. Anyone want the crab thing?" All the guys in the one group raised their hands, along with me, Simon, Derek, and Casey. "Alright, that makes eight so sorry girls, we going with the crabs. Now repugnant."

"Uh, the girls can go first this time," Jake said, trying to hold back a laugh. Julie then just held her nose and started waving her hand in front of her face.

"Okay boys, your turn." Charlie stood up with a huge smile on his face. He raised his hands like he was holding a broom or some other tool on a stick. He out on a really disturbing face and then started moving his hands up and down. His face got even creepier and he moved his hands faster.

"Ah, AH," he yelled. "We're going to need a bigger plunger. AHH!" Everyone started laughing hysterically, and couldn't stop. Charlotte and Julie looked like they were about to fall over. Casey was looking over and Charlie and laughing so hard that she almost did fall out of her seat, before Alex caught her.

"Guys," Frank said, obviously trying not to laugh. "Please, stop. Boys, is that really necessary?" Charlie and James nodded enthusiastically. "Fine, so who votes for the girls' one?" No one raised their hands. "Fine, the boys?" Everyone raised their hands, still laughing. "Uhg, fine. So what word's next?"

* * *

We finished with the words and then ended class. There wasn't anything nearly as interesting as the plunger thing, but it was still really entertaining. James did a really good impression of knocking someone to the ground and then stabbing them with a knife in the back for the word treachery but that was the best one. Casey walked up to me, Tori, Derek, and Simon when we were about to leave the room.

"Still up for swimming?" she asked. Everyone said yes. "Good, I think that means everyone is going, including the adults. So, go get your suits. We have a changing room in the pool room so you don't have to put them on yet if you don't want to."

"Thanks Casey," Simon said. She then ran off and he turned to me. "Race you upstairs!"

"I don't want to race you Simon," I said, walking towards the stairs with Derek.

"I will!" Kyle said, running over to Simon, who was now smiling. "Ready, set, go!" They started running to the stairs and up them, disappearing down the hallway. Derek shook his head.

"Same old Simon," he muttered. We walked the rest of the way to our rooms in silence. I went inside mine and decide I would just change in the pool room. I grabbed my suit and took off the tags before heading back downstairs. Almost everyone was already leaving. I caught up with Simon and we walked to the pool room, talking about some random things. We reached the pool and went inside. I found the changing room, which was just like a dressing room in a store. I changed into my suit and then went back out. Casey and James were sitting around a table, waiting for people to finish changing. Casey had a brown tankini top with a couple of stripes on the top, some matching bottoms, and a pair of light blue swim shorts while James just had some trunks with different patterns of blue on them. He looked, well… really hot still. What is with the werewolves here? Why do they have to be so attractive? I went over and sat next to Casey.

"Hi," I said.

"Hey," Casey said. "Uhg, what is taking them all so long?"

"Who knows Case," James said. Claire then came out of the changing room, wearing a light green one piece suit.

"Casey and James," she said. "Would you please go get some cases of pop from the garage?"

"What?" James complained. "Come on Mom, I don't want to go all the way back to the house!"

"Well too bad," Claire said, mimicking his tone. "Now go you two, unless you don't want to go swimming at all."

"Fine," Casey said, getting up. "Come on Jimmy."

"Casey," James said in annoyed tone. He also got up and left. Then I saw something in the corner of the room.

"Uh Claire," I said. "You know there's pop right there."

"I know," she said, sitting down. "I just need to say something to everyone while Casey isn't here."

"What?"

"I'll tell you once everyone's done changing," she said. Then she yelled, "Come on guys, hurry up."

"I'm coming Mom, God," Jake said as he came over to the table. He had on plain green trunks. Simon and Charlie came out next, laughing about something. Charlie's trunks were an English flag while Simon's were a sort of weird green flower pattern.

"Really Simon?" I said after he sat down. "Flowers?"

"Hey!" he said. "I liked them. And flowers are cool."

"Sure they are," Derek said, coming over and sitting next to his brother. I couldn't really help but stare at him. Simon had gotten him a really cool black and white patterned pair of trunks that looked _really_ good on him. Also, the fact that his chest was bare was amazing, and well, I couldn't really tear my eyes off of him, until someone let out a little scream. I turned around to see Julie running away from Kyle, who was holding something that looked like ice. Simon started laughing, that is until Kyle ran over to him and dumped the ice on his head. He screamed like a little girl and stood up quickly, brushing at his head to get the ice off.

"Don't be such a girl Simon," Miles said as he came out of the changing room, followed by the rest of the people who had finished changing.

"Now that everyone is done changing," Claire said. "Hey guys, shut up. Anyway, I need to tell you something before Casey comes back. Her dad called me earlier today and said that his cousin was sending his kids, meaning Casey's second cousins, here. One is 18 and a shaman and the other is 16 and an RP."

"What's an RP?" Tori asked.

"It means rare power," Frank said.

"Yeah," Claire said. "Casey's cousin's is a telepath, meaning he can read minds. Don't worry, Casey's dad says he's a good kid and can tune out other people's thoughts and only listens if he wants to know something. Anyway, they're coming tomorrow around 2:00 and want to surprise Casey so no one tell her. Frank is going to go pick them up around 1:30 but is going to say he's going to Home Depot. No one question it. And if you happen to see some random teenage boys walking around don't say anything unless Casey has seen them. Understand?"

"Yes Claire," we all said.

"Good, now they're coming back so everyone shut up about this." We all stopped talking just as Casey and James came in with two cases of Pepsi.

"Where do you want these?" Casey asked.

"Oh," Claire said. "Just put them by the other cases. Sorry, I forgot there was still some in here."

"Seriously?" James said. "Uhg. Can we go swimming now?" He took the other case from Casey and put them with the other boxes of pop.

"Yes, someone go open the cover."

"I vote Miles!" Casey said. Miles reluctantly went over to a little control panel on the wall and pressed a button, making a large hissing noise, then another that made the cover start moving. James and Charlie immediately jumped into the shallow end as soon as the cover had moved far enough. Casey and Alex were already running over to the slide and diving board. One of them started the slide once the pool was completely uncovered and they both went down it. I started wading into the pool slowly on the stairs. It was actually really warm for a pool but I didn't really want to just dive in. After a minute, I was up to my elbows. Then Simon jumped in right next to me, soaking what was still above water.

"Simon!" I yelled when he surfaced. "What was that for?"

"You were taking too long, so I thought I'd help you get wet," Simon said. "You're welcome!"

"Uhg," I said, splashing him. He splashed back and soon we were having a water fight that everyone else soon became a part of. Casey even brought some of those really big and powerful water guns into the fight and things got intense. For like 10 minutes we were just splashing each other. Then we stopped when Julie complained, although Kyle did dump a bunch of water on her head after we had called everything off.

"Who wants to play Marco Polo?" Charlie screamed. We all said we did and we started playing. Charlie was it first and we put all the pool toys and floaty things into the water to make things harder. I went inside this giant blow up hamster ball like thing. There were less than 30 seconds left when Derek tried to come into the ball too. I tried to motion for him to go away but he wouldn't.

"There's nowhere else," he said before finally fitting his shoulders through the small hole. He pulled the rest of his body in and sat down over by me.

"This was my spot," I complained. Then Charlie stopped counting and started saying Marco. Derek and I both barely whispered Polo while everyone else screamed it. Somehow, Charlie came over to exactly where the hamster ball thing was. He was wearing the blacked out goggles so he couldn't see anything if he tried, but he still kept coming straight for the ball. He swam right into us, sending the ball spinning around the pool. I heard Charlie curse before water poured over my face. I sputtered, trying to get the water out of my mouth. The ball was still spinning wildly and Derek and I kept banging into each other. Somehow, the thing stopped moving and I landed on top of Derek, completely on top. I blushed and was about to move off of him when Derek grabbed my arm and put a finger to his lips. I gave him a confused look and then saw that Charlie was right at one of the holes that led into the ball.

"Marco!" he screamed. It really echoed inside the ball and made my ears ring. I did little more than mouth the word Polo so Charlie wouldn't find us. Derek did the same and luckily, Kyle screamed Polo really loudly from across the pool and Charlie went after him. I sighed and relaxed, then remembered that I was on top of Derek. I blushed more and rolled off of him.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"It's fine," he whispered back.

"Pudding pie!" James screamed. I looked away to Derek to see why he had screamed that and found him swimming wildly away from Charlie. I looked back at Derek who was just looking amused. He looked at me and smiled and I got that same weird feeling again. All I could do was smile back. I then became aware of the fact that my legs were over his still but this time I didn't move them. _Might as well enjoy this,_ I thought. _Aww! You really do like him!__ Yeah, I thought we discussed this. __Still, it's so cute!__ Thanks for that. __I'm serious. You really need to figure out how to tell him you like him. He likes you too.__ You don't know that. __Are you blind? Half the time you're in the same room he's looking at you, more than half actually. And he's not moving his legs either. Don't you think that means something?__ It means he's not moving his legs, so what? __Uhg, poor oblivious Chloe. I'm going to let you figure things out by yourself for a while.__ Alright, bye._

"I hate you British boy!" Charlotte yelled. I looked up to see that Charlie had gotten her.

"Thank you, American girl," Charlie said happily. He handed her the goggles and we started another game.

* * *

We got out of the pool for good at 10:30. Who ever built this pool room was smart and had double ovens in it. Frank had put some frozen pizzas in them around 8:00 and we ate dinner, then went back in the pool and had another noodle fight. We all started getting tired around 10:00 though, and got out 30 minutes later. I dried off and got my clothes from the changing room. I didn't bother changing into them, I was just going to take a shower then go to bed once I got inside. I walked with Derek and Simon back to the house, who were both just as tired as I was. Simon didn't say anything to me besides good night when we left to go to our separate rooms. Derek stayed longer though.

"Well that was fun," I said.

"Yup and I have a feeling we're going to do the same thing in the next few days."

"Probably," I said. My eyes started drifting towards his bare chest again before I mentally slapped myself. "Well good night Derek."

"Night Chloe," Derek said as he went into his room. I went into mine and grabbed my pjs and a towel then headed towards the bathroom. I took a quick shower and hung my suit up on a towel rack to dry. I put on my pajamas and then went back to my room. I brushed my still wet hair and then climbed into bed and fell asleep.

**Ah, another long chapter. I really need to learn how to cut them down. Next chapter's will probably be short though, or **_**really**_** long. Okay so I'm just saying this, I am extremely protective of my own personal books and almost never let anyone borrow them. Well, I let my friends borrow them but I know they will give it back eventually. My sister however has come into my room and just taken a book without telling me and then never gives it back, until I find it on **_**her **_**bookshelf and take it back. My mom also forces me to lend her one that she wants to read and it really annoys me. Who liked how Simon, Casey, and Chloe all were trying so hard to freak out Derek? I thought it was hysterical! So everything that happened during "school" actually did happen in one of my classes. I know they might have seemed weird but they were hard to explain and didn't come out in written words well. They were much funnier if you were actually there, like if you could see the one guy's face when he did the whole plunger thing, it was hysterical! So, Casey's cousins that are coming tomorrow are based on my second cousins, and they are awesome guys. Besides my dad, they are like the coolest guys I know. They're both really immature and funny and I'm pretty sure you guys will love them too. So I need some ideas for either the next chapter or the one after that. What's something a bunch of guys could do for like an entire day and then a night? Don't ask what it's for, you'll find out soon enough. Anyway, I'll try to put up the next chapter as soon as possible, I think you guys will really like it! Review PLEASE!! So bye! Wait, Tom Felton rocks! Sorry, I'm still watching Harry Potter and I love him!**


	14. Change

**Hello everyone! Sorry for the sort of long wait, I had a horror craving over the past week and have been watching a lot of horror movies. And I also experienced the scariest experience of my life on Wednesday, if you guys want to hear about it now, PM me, otherwise, Casey will talk about it in a few chapters. YAY! I'm on my Spring Break now! I plan on sitting on the couch and watching TV for the whole week! Who else is extremely excited about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter? It opens June 18****th****! I'm so excited! So, I watched the season/series finale of Ben 10: Alien Force while finishing the last part of this chapter. It was fricken awesome! I started screaming when Kevin turned back to normal, because he is a hot cartoon and reminds me of Derek (no he is the perfect Derek, I swear, while I'm watching Ben 10, I call Kevin Derek in my mind), and then when Gwen kissed him afterwards. I didn't even know that they had become a couple yet! And then Ben 10: Ultimate Alien starts on April 23****rd****, my puppy's birthday! Yeah, so right now, I'm watching Dude What Would Happen? which came on after Star Wars the Clone Wars which was on after Ben 10 so I didn't turn it on. There is nothing on TV so I'm just watching it, and it is the stupidest show ever! The guys are just so annoying and all they do is act really stupid and try to seem cool and I just want to rip their heads off! Okay, one last thing before I get to the chapter, I have officially started my prep for the Reckoning! I started the Awakening on Monday during study hall and am almost finished with it! I'll probably read it again over break before reading the chapters of the Reckoning several times. So here's the chapter, sorry for the usual and I don't own Darkest Powers.**

I was sitting on my bed, playing solitaire on my iPod. It was 1:15. I just couldn't get a good night's sleep for anything! And I hadn't even had a nightmare, I just woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I had been sitting here for about 30 minutes, just playing solitaire, which was not very amusing. I was getting thirsty around 1:30 and decided to go get some water from the bathroom, which was just a few doors down the hall. I slowly got off the bed and tiptoed to my closed door, not wanting to wake up Derek in the next room. I pulled open the door, which surprisingly didn't squeak. I went down the hall, counting the doors to make sure I didn't wind up in someone's room. I reached the bathroom and stepped inside. I closed the door so the water wouldn't make so much noise and then turned on the light. I got out some of the little disposable cups on the counter and filled up two. I drank one right away and then refilled it. I then opened up the bathroom door again and stepped out into the hallway, where someone was just passing by. A someone I would know anywhere, even in the dark.

"Derek?" I said. He turned around slightly so I could barely see his face from the small amount of light coming from the bathroom. He was only in his boxers, again, and I had to force my eyes to remain on his face. I hoped I hadn't woken him up while walking down the hall.

"Hey Chloe," he said. "What are you doing up?" Guess not.

"Um, I couldn't sleep and was thirsty so I got up to get some water. What about you?"

"Oh… Um," Derek said, clearly trying to make up a reason. "I couldn't sleep too and was going downstairs for a snack."

"Come on Derek," I said. "I could tell you were just trying to make up a reason. Not why are you really up?"

"I was just hungry, is that so hard to believe?" he said, shifting his feet a little.

"No, but-" I said before I saw sweat on his back glisten in the small amount of light. I looked at him closer and saw he was completely covered in sweat, his hair plastered to his face and the muscles in his back moving, just like they was when he was- "Derek you're Changing aren't you?"

"What! No, of course not," he said defensively. "Why would you think something like that?"

"Seriously?" I said walking up to him. "First, you're covered in sweat. Second, your muscles are having a spaz attack. And third." I brought my hand up to his forehead, feeling the burning heat I knew I would. "You're burning up. Now give me a reason not to think you're Changing."

"Fine, you caught me," Derek said. He reached up and took my hand from his face. "I was going outside to Change. Can I go now?"

"Sure, let's go," I said.

"Chloe," he warned. "You aren't coming with me."

"Yes I am Derek, I don't care what you say, I am not staying here."

"Chloe, you can't come. What if I lose control? After everything the Edison Group did, I can't risk you getting hurt."

"God Derek, when are you going to get it? You are not going to lose control, and you're not going to hurt me. So there's nothing to worry about. And that means I am coming. End of discussion."

"There is a chance that I could lose control, and I don't want you there if I do. I would never forgive myself if something bad happened to you because of me." _Aww, see he does like you!__ Oh my God, now really isn't a good time!_

"I'm not letting you go alone," I said. "You can do whatever the hell you want, I'll still find a way to follow you out there."

"Uhg," Derek said, running his hands through his hair. "Fine Chloe, you can come. But if I tell you to run, you run. No questions asked. Understand?"

"Yeah, completely," I said happily before grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the stairs. "Now let's go before you start Changing inside the house." We walked the rest of the way outside in silence. Once we got outside, Derek took the lead and started heading deep into the woods. In about five minutes, we reached a pretty good sized clearing. I could see that his muscles were moving more rapidly and knew that he was going to start Changing soon.

"You promise you'll leave if I tell you to?" Derek asked as he got down on all fours.

"Yes Derek," I said, sighing. I walked over to where he was on the ground and sat down next to him. His breathing became more ragged after a few minutes and I noticed his arm muscles were really twitching.

Suddenly, his back shot up and he gave out a cry. Then it went up even higher, clearly showing all the bones in his back. Derek gave out another cry before his back went up again and the hair started to appear. I got closer to him and rubbed his shoulders like last time, hoping it would help. He turned his head slightly so I could see his fake smile. Then he dropped his head and his back shot up again. A low whimper barely escaped his lips before he cut it off. That really scared me, and I didn't really know why. It was almost like it hurt _me_ every time his back shot up. Maybe that was because I had finally discovered that I really did like him. _God, not this again!__ Wait what do you-_

The rest of my inner conversation was cut off by the sound of Derek throwing up. I looked back up at his face, but I couldn't see anything more than his hair. He threw up again and kept throwing up until there was nothing left. Then he started dry heaving and it was horrible. I could feel the muscles in his back shifting and looked down at his hands. They were shifting into a paw shape which hadn't happened last time, so I suspected that this Change had already gone farther than the last. I looked back up at Derek's face and saw that it had definitely changed more. Derek's normal hair had receded and I could see that his ears were basically a wolf's. His temples had narrowed and his nose and jaw had morphed into a muzzle. His whole face was covered in black fur that was no longer receding. I wasn't even sure if the real Derek was there.

"Derek?" I said, trying to see if he was still well, Derek. He turned his head so I could see his eyes and gave a little nod, which I assumed meant it was still him. His back shot up again and he let out a whine that now sounded very canine-ish. I kept rubbing his shoulders and after a few more minutes, noticed the muscles had stopped moving. Then Derek collapsed onto the ground. The Change had apparently finished and Derek was now a huge black wolf, with boxers on. I smiled.

"See," I said. "I told you nothing bad would happen." Derek raised his head and gave me one of those disapproving looks that was so Derek-like that I laughed. I had to hold back the urge to hug him. He began to rise into a sitting position shakily. Once he was up, he began to sway slightly so I went over next to him and held his shoulders. "Now this is weird, I'm saving _you_ from falling for once." I felt a rumble come from him which I assumed was a laugh. He turned his head to face me and I stared at his eyes. His really, really gorgeous eyes that were even more gorgeous when he was a wolf.

"So um… How are you supposed to change back?" He sat there for a minute, thinking I suppose, before using his paw to make some scratch marks in the dirt. He looked back at me when he was finished and I was confused. "What?" He rolled his eyes and then nudged me with his nose so I looked more closely at the scratch marks. They were letters, _IDK_, standing for I don't know I guessed. Huh, who knew Derek could speak text language?

"Well that's great. Do you want me to do get Frank or something?"

_No, I'm fine as long as u stay,_ he wrote. _AWW! Come on that so means he likes you!__ God will you just shut up? And it doesn't it just means that he doesn't want to be left alone. __Yeah sure…_

"So… Um… Want to play tik-tac-toe?" I asked, feeling like doing something random. Derek rolled his eyes again before drawing a tik-tac-toe board in the dirt. He put and X in one of the corners then looked back at me. I put down an O in the opposite corner. We played out the game and Derek won. We started another, which Derek also won. We played 7 games with Derek winning them all.

"Seriously? How can you do that? We didn't even get a tie game!"

_I'm a super genius, remember, _he wrote.

"Shut up," I said, pushing his some. "I don't want to play a game you cheat at."

_That wasn't cheating, it's being smart and knowing what some1 else will do._

"What do you do in you're free time? Look up fool-proof tik-tak-toe strategies?"

_Maybe…_

"Wow Derek, you need a life. So… We should probably try to figure out how to change you back into a human now."

_Yeah I guess, have any suggestions?_

"No, you're the super genius remember?"

_Haha, u r so funny. But seriously I have no idea._

"Well that's great, you sure you don't want me to go find Frank?"

_Nah, I'll figure things out in the morning. I'll just sleep out here. Go back inside and get some rest._

"No Derek, I'm not leaving you here by yourself. What if something bad happens? So no, I'm staying here."

_U r so stubborn. Fine, stay here, but I'm sleeping._

"Fine with me," I said. Derek got up and moved to the edge of the clearing where there wasn't any barf. For a second, it looked like he was going to turn around in a circle before lying down and I had to hold back a laugh. Sadly, he never actually did it and just lay down without any sort of preparation. He put his head down on his paws and stared at me. I walked over to where he was and sat down next to him. He turned his head and paws so that he could still stare at me. "What? I thought you were going to sleep."

_What about u?_ he wrote in the dirt again.

"I'll just sleep here," I said, lying down where I had been sitting, a few feet away from Derek. I looked over to him and saw that he was still staring at me. "Okay that's just getting annoying now." He rolled his eyes and motioned with his head for me to come by him, at least I think it's what he meant. I crawled over to where he was. "What?" He picked up his head and pushed my head down on his shoulder with it. I could see the look in his eyes and interpreted it as _stay._ "Okay fine Derek, I'll stay." He gave a little nod before putting his head back on his paws and closing his eyes. I leaned my head back onto his shoulder, which was really comfy actually. I could feel every breath he took and how it began to slow. I soon closed my eyes as well and fell asleep.

* * *

I woke up to the sound of birds. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that I was still in the clearing. _Well obviously stupid, where else would you be? By the way, look at what you're lying on*smiles evilly*._I looked down and saw Derek, now back to normal human form. My head was still on his shoulder, his bare shoulder. Luckily, his boxers seemed to have survived the Change. I slowly raised my head, trying not to wake him up. But, as soon as I was in a sitting position, I saw his eyes open. _So much for not waking him up._

"Hey," I said. "Guess we know how to make you change back now." Derek held up one of his hands in front of his face, like to see if he actually was human. He then pulled himself into a sitting position as well.

"Great," he said. "Sleeping is something I can do."

"Any idea what time it is?"

"Hm… Let's see… Judging by the amount of light, I would say it's around 10:15."

"Wait, do you seriously know how to do that or are you just guessing?"

"Yes, I do, and I make some pretty good estimates too. Now we should probably be going back inside."

"If your magical time telling skills are correct, then yeah we probably should go back." Derek stood up and offered a hand down to me. I took it gratefully and let him pull me up. He seemed to remember the way back to the house, so I just walked beside him. Then I remembered what happened last night and smacked his arm.

"Ow," he said, rubbing the place where I hit him. "What was that for?"

"For not coming to get me when you knew you were Changing and then lying to me about it. Why did you do that? And the truth not some stupid reason like you forgot."

"Chloe, I just didn't want you to worry or get hurt. I'm sorry okay, but I was thinking about your safety. Now that I know I won't loose control or anything, I'll come get you next time."

"You swear?"

"Yes I swear. Now come on, we'll go through the front door so we can get actual clothes on without people noticing."

"Okay," I said, picking up the pace. We reached the edge of the forest and went around to the front of the house. Luckily, the front door was unlocked and we got upstairs without anyone noticing. I quickly changed into jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt and brushed my hair before heading back into the hallway. I went downstairs and into the TV room, where basically all the kids in the house were.

"Chloe!" Simon yelled as he jumped off of the couch and came running over to me. He hugged me which I found really weird.

"I'm fine Simon," I said, a little confuse about what I should say to get him to let me go. He did though and then stepped back a little.

"Where were you? We looked everywhere for you and Derek and couldn't find you anywhere! What happened?" Simon said in both a furious and worried voice.

"Okay Simon, calm down," I said, a little annoyed. "Derek Changed last night and I forced him to make me go with him. Then we couldn't figure out how to make him change back into a human so we just sat outside and I guess we fell asleep."

"Oh… Wait so-" Simon began but was cut off by James.

"What? Derek already has Changed?" he yelled, jumping up from the couch. "How is that possible? He's only 16, that's not supposed to happen until like we're 18 or 19."

"Yeah I know," I said. "Don't ask me why it happened, probably something to do with the Edison Group thing."

"Yeah, probably," James said. "I'm going to go find him." He ran out of the room and into the computer room. There was a loud crashing sound and a thump of something heavy hitting the ground. "Found him!" In a couple of seconds, Derek came walking into the room, rubbing his head. It looked like he was heading towards the kitchen before James ran in front of him and cut him off.

"Why didn't you tell me you've already Changed?" he yelled. Derek looked over at me. I mouthed the word sorry to him before James began talking again. "Why did it happen to you so early? How exactly does the Change work? Dad's only told me some basic stuff and he won't tell me more until I'm 18, stupid I know. Please tell me Derek, please, please!" He was jumping up and down like a three year old on Christmas who wasn't allowed to go downstairs until everyone was awake **(Or maybe me on Christmas when I can't go downstairs until everyone is up)**.

"Don't tell him Derek!" Casey yelled from the couch. "It's one of the only things that annoys him!" Derek looked back over at me and I shook my head, smiling.

"Sorry James," he said, pushing past him towards the kitchen. "I think I'll just keep that information to myself."

"What? Why?" James whined. Then he ran over to me. "You were there right Chloe? Tell me please!"

"I'm with Derek on this one," I said. "And I'm also getting food. Bye James!" I walked around him towards the kitchen. I could tell that Simon was following me and I promptly ignored him. I found a couple of muffins on the food corner and grabbed some of them before going to the table. I sat down and Simon sat next to me, taking one of my muffins. I kept ignoring him. Then Derek came out of the pantry with a box of Froot Loops and another box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. He got out a bowl, spoon, and the milk before coming to the table and sitting opposite me. He poured some of both cereals into the bowl and then poured milk over them. Then he began shoveling the cereal into his mouth.

"Okay that is disgusting," I said, staring at the bowl.

"Hey," Derek said, shrugging. "They're both good and they don't taste bad together, so it saves time."

"Still disgusting," I said before eating my muffin. Then Simon started talking.

"So Derek, you actually went full wolf last night?" he asked. Derek just grunted a little and shrugged his shoulders, but Simon wouldn't settle for that. "Come on bro! Tell me!"

"Fine Simon," Derek said. "You know what happened, I magically transformed into a wolf before running around in the forest the entire night. Happy?" Simon looked at me. It seemed like he actually believed Derek's story and was looking at me for a confirmation. I had to laugh.

"Actually Simon," I said. "It wasn't quite that nice. The transforming part anyway. And after that Derek did not go running around in the woods."

"Then what _did _happen?" Simon whined. I was about to tell him a little more before I saw James bolt back behind the wall.

"Um… Actually, the magical transformation was pretty close to what happened. And then he did go skipping around in the forest, if wolves can skip. Is that a good enough explanation James?"

"Come on!" James said as he walked around the wall and sat at the table. "Why won't you guys just tell me?"

"Well," I said, thinking. "First, it annoys you and it's funny. Second, Derek is genetically modified and you aren't so the whole Change process might be different."

"SO!" he practically yelled. "I want to know!"

"Well too bad," I said. "Go pester someone else now."

"Fine," James said, walking out of the kitchen. "Charlie, Chloe said for me to come pester you!"

"Did not!" I said before taking another bite of muffin.

"Please tell me guys!" Simon said, still not settling for knowing only the little details.

"God Simon," Derek said, shaking his head. "You know you're still as annoying now as you were when we were 7?"

"Well thank you Derek, I live to annoy you. Now just tell me! Please please please please please please-"

"Alright, alright," Derek said. "Just shut up. Well I'm not really going to go into the actual Change part, not too fun. What do you want to know about afterwards?"

"What was it like being a wolf? It was awesome wasn't it?!"

"Um… Not really, it was more just weird. I was still… me and well, it was just weird. Anything else?"

"What did you actually do after the Change? Chloe said neither of you could figure out how to make you change back so how did you... um, communicate?"

"I wrote stuff in the dirt," he said, looking over at me. "And I beat Chloe in tic-tac-toe 10 times."

"Hey!" I said. "It was only seven and you cheated, I don't know how, but you cheated. But speaking of writing stuff, I didn't expect you to use text language."

"Blame that on Simon," Derek said. "He tried to teach me to be a 'normal' teenage guy last summer."

"Simon!" I said, turning to him. "That's mean."

"Hey!" Simon said. "I was bored okay! We had just moved at the beginning of the summer so I had no friends besides Derek so I had to find something to do! And I thought it would help Derek make some friends once we started school."

"I don't want friends," Derek said. "I got you, and now Chloe. That works for me."

"Aww!" I cried. "I'm your friend?!"

"Well, yeah Chloe," Derek said, a little confused. I couldn't help myself. Derek calling me his friend was just so… sweet. I ran over around the table and hugged him. He tensed and just sat there until I let go. "Um… what was that for?"

"You calling me your friend. I would have thought that was impossible, except for Simon anyway."

"Yeah me too," Simon said. "But Chloe, after everything we've been through together, I think it's guaranteed that we're all friends."

"Even Tori?" I asked jokingly.

"Maybe a forced friend."

"Or a reluctant acquaintance," Derek muttered. I started laughing while I walked back over to my previous spot at the table. Then I looked at the clock on the microwave and saw it was 11:23.

"Wait," I said. "Don't we have class or something?"

"No one told you?" Simon asked. Derek and I both shook our heads. "Well duh, of course no one has. Frank cancelled class today because he was going to um… 'Home Depot' later today so it would mess everything up."

"Right," I said, thinking back to yesterday. Frank was really going to get Casey's cousins. Cousins of Casey, that should be interesting.

"Oh my God!" Simon yelled suddenly. "No one told you guys what we're doing tomorrow either! All us guys are leaving the house at five and then not coming back until noon on Saturday! Chloe, I don't know what you girls are doing but you have to whole house to yourselves."

"That's great," I said unenthusiastically. If there were only girls in the house, the whole night would probably become a big slumber party. I started thinking about what all the other girls could force me to do and flinched. "So what are you guys doing?"

"Miles said laser tag, paintball, and a real arcade! And apparently, Anna's dad owns a Motel 6 so we're staying there for the night. He's closing the entire hotel just so we can run around the halls and do whatever we want!" I started laughing at Simon's enthusiasm. He kept going on and on about what they would do without the girls and I got bored so I went to the couch. James was poking Charlie over and over again while Julie was doing the same to Casey. I sighed and sat down and started watching some weird show that had a bald kid with a blue arrow on his head in it.

**So was it good? I know I completely butchered the whole Change thing. I spent probably over an hour reading that part in the Awakening over and over again and I still couldn't figure out a way to write it without completely copying the book. But who liked some nice Derek-Chloe alone time? Okay I know, it wasn't great alone time. Isn't the whole gender speration day going to be fun? I'll enjoy writing that one, and you guys will get a Derek POV chapter! Sorry if any of this chapter didn't make sense, it took me a while to figure out how to word things right. I also don't really look over the chapter so… Anyway, sorry if James annoyed anyone in this chapter, but I thought it was funny. I have a very weird sense of humor, if you haven't figured it out yet. That show Chloe was watching at the end is Avatar the Last Airbender and I love it! My friend thinks Zuko is hot and I have to agree sort of. It's always on on this one channel but my TV doesn't get it so I can't watch it and it upsets me. And just so you guys know, it's going to be almost a week in the actual story before Derek and Chloe get together, and it's going to be a lot of chapters. Sorry, but that's the way I planned it. Wow, this is going to be a really long story. So, please review my FanFiction buddies! I want six before I post the next chapter. After that, I'll update as soon as I possibly can, and it is Spring Break for me so I'll have a lot of time on my hands. Bye peoples!**


	15. Meet the cousins

**Hey peoples! Sorry it took me so long to update, I've just been doing a lot of other stuff. For instance, I read that novella about Simon and Derek and I almost cried at the first chapter, Derek just sounded so depressed and I got really sad. My sister has also made me play Super Mario Bros with her and I've been doing that a lot. So in that game, you can ride Yoshis and we all named ours and guess what I named mine! Derek!! Go ahead, call me obsessed if you want, I don't care. So the Reckoning comes out in less than a week! I'm so fricken excited! Since my story is supposed to take place at the time of the Reckoning, I want to make sure that people will still read it after the book comes out, so will you? Please answer this! I just got back from bowling, mini golfing, and playing arcade games with some of my friends and it was awesome! I got second place in bowling and first in golf! Then when we were in the arcade, the prize redemption guys were flirting with us, even though my friend's brother, the guy who Kyle is based off of, was with us. It was hilarious and we got a bunch of free tootsie rolls because of it! Okay one last thing, DESMOND IS BACK!!!! I doubt many of you get that but he's on LOST and one of my fav characters, which you would know if you read my profile. Anyway I just had to put that in because I love Desmond and started screaming and jumping up and down when I realized it was him! So, here's the chapter. Sorry for grammar/spelling errors and out of characterness. Don't own Darkest Powers either, if I did, I would have made the Reckoning come out months ago!**

Chloe's POV

"God Simon!" I yelled, throwing the Wii remote at him. "You're such a cheater!"

"Hey!" Simon yelled back, dodging the remote. "It's not my fault you suck at Mario Kart! And I'm just smart enough to look up short cuts and cheats."

"Exactly, cheats! That means you cheated!"

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

"Okay guys," Tori said. "I have to admit that this is really entertaining, but your screaming is hurting my ears. So shut up."

"Fine," I said before stomping back up the stairs. Simon had challenged me, Tori, and Kyle to a Mario Kart tournament and it was not fun. I lost every single race and Simon somehow wound up finishing three minutes before everyone else. I got pissed off kept yelling at him the entire time. Kyle didn't help either because he was always second and would shoot me whenever he could.

I reached the top of the stairs and went to the couch. Casey was flipping through channels while James was sitting next to her and poking her over and over. Apparently he was really bored. I sat down on Casey's other side. It was around 1:45 now so Frank had already left to pick up Casey's cousins.

"Ben 10!" Casey yelled as she turned on a channel. The show popped up and it was a cartoon. There was this really creepy looking thing that was squirting stiff at some robot thing. Then this one guy who was this weird silvery blue color came onto the screen and started punching one of the robot things. Some red headed girl then came onto the screen and made a bunch of pink stuff fl into the robot thingys.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Ben 10: Alien Force! It's amazing and one of my favorite shows!" Casey said. "Okay so that alien thing is Ben who can turn into aliens. The girl is Gwen who inherited her alien grandma's alien magic. The guy is Kevin who can um… his power is confusing. But I love Kevin, he is my favorite cartoon character ever. He's almost cooler than James."

"Well that's insulting," James said, still poking her.

"Well he is and I did say _almost._ Anyway, this show is awesome Chloe, just watch it."

"Alright," I said turning back to the screen. For a couple minutes, I watched the show and it wasn't that good but also confusing. Derek came into the room after a while and sat down in the corner of the couch. Then I remembered the emails Casey, Simon, and I had made up yesterday and I sat up straight.

"Hey Derek," I said, turning to face him.

"Yes Chloe?" he said, turning to face me as well.

"Did you check your email?" Casey let out a small little laugh that she quickly turned into a cough. Derek didn't even look her way.

"Why would I? No one is going to send me anything."

"I did! Go get you laptop!"

"Do I have to?"

"Yes! I want you to read what I sent you!"

"Fine," Derek said, getting up reluctantly. As soon as he left the room, Casey started laughing hysterically.

"Oh my God," she said. "This is going to be awesome!"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm getting Simon." I got off the couch and headed for the basement. At the top of the stairs, I was about to yell for Simon to come up but then thought better of it. Derek would hear me. So I went down the stairs. He, Tori, and Kyle were still playing Mario Kart. I went around to the back of the couch and bent down right by Simon's ear. Then I whispered, "Hey Simon."

"Ahh!" he yelled, turning around so quick that he almost fell off the couch. Tori saw that and started laughing. "Chloe, you scared me. What do you want?"

"Remember that uh… thing involving Derek that we talked about yesterday?" I said, not wanting to give anything away to Tori or Kyle.

"What th- Oh, you mean that thing with that me, Casey, and you did?"

"Yeah. Well I think you'll want to come upstairs."

"K" Simon said, jumping off the couch. "Sorry guys, I'm done playing."

"What are you guys talking about?" Tori asked.

"Nothing," I said quickly. Tori raised her eyebrows suspiciously then got off the couch and began walking towards the stairs. Kyle, Simon, and I followed her and I sat down on the couch just as Derek was coming in.

"I got it," he said, holding up his silver laptop. He came over and sat back down next to me. Simon came and sat on the other side of Derek and Tori sat on the arm of the couch.

"Good," I said. "Now turn it on and log into your account. Then just read the email from me." He turned on the computer and logged onto his account. Then he brought up the inbox page and stared at the extra two messages.

"What the hell?" he muttered. He clicked open one of the messages that were from Casey which I could see was the stalker one. He read it slowly and I could see his eyes getting wider and wider. He finished the message and then looked at me.

"What?" I said, trying to sound confused.

"Read this," he said, handing the laptop to me. I read it over and tried to act scared.

"Oh my God," I said. "Someone is stalking you!"

"What?" Casey said, trying to play along. "Let me see that." I handed her the laptop and she began reading the message. James looked at the screen and read it as well and Simon and Tori came around the couch to look at it.

"Holy shit," Tori said after she read it. She sounded really freaked out and apparently believed that Derek was being stalked.

"Yeah I know," Derek said. The look on his face was one of terror and I had to hold back a laugh. "What if that is someone from the Edison Group? They know we're here. Oh my God, they're going to attack us. We have to tell Claire." Derek got up and started walking towards the kitchen where Claire was making a late lunch. Simon, Casey, James, and I all started laughing hysterically and Tori looked at us like we were crazy.

"Why are you guys laughing?" she asked. "This is serious!"

"Not really," I said. I got up and ran after Derek, thinking it probably wouldn't be a good idea to freak out Claire too. I caught up to him and grabbed his arm.

"What?" he said, turning around.

"You aren't really being stalked."

"What?"

"Simon, Casey, and I sent that to you to try to freak you out. And it worked!"

"What?!" he yelled, looking back at the couch. "That is so not funny guys."

"I thought it was hilarious!" Simon said. "You should have seen your face!"

"You guys suck," Derek said before disappearing into the pantry.

"What happened?" Claire asked, coming over to me.

"Oh, uh… Casey, Simon, and I all did something to freak out Derek."

"Fine by me," Claire said. "Just don't do anything that endangers anyone's life."

"Seriously Claire?!" Simon yelled from the couch.

"Yeah, I love seeing people freak out," she said before turning back to the stove.

"Cool," I said, walking back to the couch. I sat down and then turned to Simon. "So what else are we going to do to make people freak out?"

"Leave that to me," James said. I turned to face him and he had the creepiest smile on his face.

"He'll make up something really good," Casey said. "Trust me."

"Alright," I said, looking back at the screen. There was another alien fight scene on which wasn't very exciting. Derek came back to the couch with two bags of crackers and sat down between me and Simon.

"Sorry about that bro," Simon said. Derek just grunted and stuffed a few crackers into his mouth.

"Come on Derek," I said. "You have to admit it was funny." He looked at me and glared. "Or not, it definitely wasn't funny."

"Thank you," he said before looking back at the screen.

"Kevin! NO!" Casey screamed. I looked up at the TV and saw that the Kevin guy had been knocked across the room by a robot thing. Casey looked really worried until he got up and then she let out a sigh of relief. I started laughing and she turned to me. "That isn't funny! Kevin almost got hurt!"

"He's a cartoon Casey," Julie said as she came into the room.

"A fricken awesome cartoon!"

"Whatever," Julie said, sitting down on the couch. We kept watching Ben 10 until the episode ended and then another one started. About ten minutes into that episode, Derek and James both stiffened at the exact same time, like they had heard something.

"What?" I whispered to Derek.

"Frank's back," he said quietly. He looked over at James and moved his head slightly to where the garage was. James nodded then turned back to the screen, trying to act causally. I looked back at Derek who was now looking over towards the computer room. I followed his gaze and saw two teenage guys, Casey's cousins, tip toeing into the room. One was about six feet tall with dark brown hair and looked around 18. The other was closer to five feet with blond hair and looked around my age. Seeing us, the taller one put his finger to his lips and kept coming towards the couch.

"Ah! Kevin!" Casey yelled, still watching TV and completely unaware of the guys coming up behind her. After about a minute, they were right behind Casey and the taller one brought his face right behind Casey's head.

"I gotcha where I want ya, now I'm gonna eat ya," he whispered. Casey looked really confused and turned around slowly. When she saw the guy behind her, she screamed.

"Boone!" she yelled before standing up on the couch and jumping over the back. Then she hugged the taller guy who was apparently Boone. Then she let go of him and saw the other guy and yelled, "Dan!" and went to hug him. She let go of Dan then looked from one guy to the other. "What are you guys doing here?!"

"Kind of a long story," Boone said. "And I would prefer to tell it while eating, I'm starving."

"Same," Dan said.

"Yeah, sure," Casey said. "Come on, the pantry's this way." She led them into the kitchen and then to the pantry. I sat back down on the couch and waited for them to come back. I heard Claire introduce herself to the guys, welcome them to the house, and tell Casey that everyone had know they were coming. Then Frank came into the room.

"Hey guys," he said. As he passed James, he flicked his ear.

"Ow," James said, turning around and hitting his dad's arm.

"Yeah that really hurt," Frank said sarcastically before heading to the kitchen. Casey, Dan, and Boone then all came back into the TV room and sat down, the guys each having a full bag of chips. Casey sat down next to James and Dan and Boone sat down on the other side of her.

"Oh, sorry guys," she said to the rest of us on the couch. She gestured at Dan and Boone. "These are my second cousins, Dan and Boone, although I know them better than any of my first cousins. Guys, we'll introduce you to everyone in a while. Now will you tell me why you're here?!"

"Alright," Boone said. "Dan, would you like to start?"

"Sure," Dan said. Then he launched into why exactly they were here. Their dad, who was also a shaman, and Casey's dad, also shaman, had begun thinking that the Edison Group had found out about the population of supernaturals all living together in Illinois and were worried that they would come and do… something that could endanger the kid supernaturals. Since Casey was already here, Boone and Dan's dad thought it would be a good idea for them to come here. He had also known that our little anti-Edison Group organization, which apparently was never given a name, was getting really close to attacking the Edison Group at its headquarters, where me and Tori had been held captive, and knew that Boone and Dan would want to and be a lot of help so he sent them. Neither of Casey's sisters were supernaturals and they were both younger than her so they stayed. So now they're here and that's it.

"Whoa," Casey said, leaning back into the couch. "So the Edison Group might attack our town, great."

"Relax," James said, rubbing her shoulder. "Nothing's going to happen to anyone. And from what you've told me, your dad is an awesome liar."

"He is, but you still are the best liar I know," she said, smacking his arm.

"What was that for?"

"Being the best liar I know," Casey said before turning back to her cousins. "Alright, time for official introductions. Just wait until we get everyone in here." She got up from the couch and went to the nearest intercom and said, "People get your butts to the TV room, it's intro time!" As she came back to the couch, a stampede of footsteps sounded from all around the house. Soon, everyone in the house was sitting on one of the couches, the adults on one and the kids on the other. This time, Casey led the intros.

"Okay people," she began. "First, thanks for telling me my cousins were coming, really nice to know beforehand. Second, James, start the introductions."

"Uhg fine," James said, turning to face Dan and Boone. "Hey guys, I'm James, 17 and a werewolf. Um… I like watching people have spaz attacks, pull pranks, and be extremely immature. Oh, and I'm Casey's boyfriend."

"Unofficial mate to be specific," Casey said.

"Why do you always have to be so specific?" James asked, a little annoyed.

"Because it annoys you," Casey said. "Alright, Chloe you're next."

"Okay, so I'm Chloe" I said, turning towards the guys. "I'm 15 and an extremely powerful genetically altered necromancer. I like music and anything that involves movies." I turned to face Derek. "Derek?" He sighed.

"I'm Derek, 16, and a werewolf. And I don't like much." Simon and I both smacked one of his arms at the same time.

"Ignore him," I said, turning back to Boone and Dan. "He's antisocial."

"Yeah," Simon said. "Anyway I'm Simon. I'm 15 and a pathetic excuse for a sorcerer. I like making comics, video games, and TV."

The rest of the people introduced themselves and they all said basically the same thing as when we came. Then it was Dan and Boone's turn to introduce themselves.

"Well," Boone began. "I'm Boone, 18 and a shaman. I like acting immature, running, pole vaulting, and camping." He then looked at his brother.

"Yeah so I'm Dan," Dan said. "I'm 16 and an RP telepath. I like being outside, watching good TV, and peanuts." Casey started laughing after the peanuts thing so I guess it was an inside joke.

"Okay people," Claire said. "That is everyone. Now go and be nice to the new people." All the adults then left, along with Tori, Jacob, Alex, Kyle, Charlotte, and Julie. On her way out, Julie glanced back at Dan and Boone. Dan then started laughing.

"What?" Casey asked. "You were reading someone's mind weren't you?"

"Sort of," Dan said. Casey hit his arm. "Okay yeah I was. By the way, your friend Julie has a very interesting mind."

"Oh God, what was she thinking?"

"That Boone and I were both hot and muscular." Boone and Casey both started laughing. I looked at them and saw that they actually were kind of hot and definitely muscular, almost as much as Derek and James.

"Yeah that sounds like Julie," Casey said, shaking her head.

"She thought _you_ were hot?" Boone exclaimed. Dan glared.

"You know I can read your mind too," he said. Boone quickly stopped laughing and stared back at his brother.

"Don't even think about it," Boone said. Dan smiled evilly before opening his mouth and began saying something but Boone cut him off by tackling him and knocking him off the couch. "Shut up."

"Fine," Dan said. "But I am getting payback, once we're done catching up with Casey and talking to all these other people."

"Thank you Dan," Casey said.

"Yes thank you," Charlie said, turning to Boone. "So you pole vault?"

"Yeah, I broke the county record… that my dad set when he was a kid," Boone said.

"I still don't get how your dad could possibly pole vault," Casey muttered.

"Anyway," Charlie said. "Can you teach me? I've always wanted to try pole vaulting!"

"If you get a pole and something to jump over and land one, sure."

"Cool!" Charlie said.

"Hey I want to pole vault too!" James said.

"Sure whatever," Boone said. "Anyone else?"

"Me!" Simon yelled.

"You never offered to teach me how to pole vault," Casey whined.

"You never asked. Do you want to?"

"Yes!"

"Alright," Boone said. "Now Casey, how come we never heard about James here?"

"You never told them about me?" James said, turning to Casey and pouting. I started laughing along with Charlie.

"Shut up James. Boone, do we have to go into this now?" Boone and Dan looked at each other.

"I say yes," Boone said. "I mean we are your older cousins." Then he sort of began just staring at Casey. Her expression changed and then started staring at him. This went on for about 30 seconds until Casey smacked his arm.

"God Boone, no!" she yelled. Then they did the same thing again and I started to get creeped out.

"What are they doing?" I whispered to Derek.

"No idea," Derek said back. "James, you know what they're doing?"

"No, but it's creepy and I don't like it," James said. "Casey," he said, poking her several times. "Casey."

"Go away James," Casey said.

"They're communicating wordlessly," Dan said. "It's a shaman thing. They can talk into each others' heads, kind of like me."

"That's weird," Charlie said. "Wait, so you can talk into people's heads?"

"Yeah."

"Prove it," James said. Dan just looked at him and James flinched. "Okay that was weird."

"You get used to it," Dan said, shrugging. "Or that's what Casey says."

"Talk in my head!" Charlie said.

"Mine too!" Simon added.

"Uhg, why don't I just do it for all of you?"

"You can do that?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah. So get ready." I braced myself for something weird. After a few seconds, Dan's voice sounded in my head. _See? Does this work for you guys?_ I shook my head to get rid of the weirdness.

"Okay that was really weird," Derek said.

"Whoa," Simon said. "Derek actually admitted something was weird, that never happens."

"What never happens?" Casey said, tuning back into reality.

"Done with your creepy wordless conversation?" James asked.

"It isn't weird, just wordless. And it is useful with someone like you around. So what never happens?"

"Derek said something was weird," Dan said. "And from what I've heard, that is odd."

"By heard you mean read our thoughts right?" I asked.

"Well… yeah. Sorry, if anyone doesn't want me to read their mind ever, tell me now, 'cause I will." I thought for a while, thinking about anything that I might think that I wouldn't want Dan to hear. Besides the whole Derek thing, there wasn't anything, and I hoped Dan wouldn't mention something like that. As if he had heard that, which he probably had, Dan said, "And don't worry, I'll never mention any of deep dark secrets, unless they're really bad."

"I don't really care," Simon said. Everyone else agreed.

"Alright," Dan said.

"Hey," Casey said. "Did your mom ever let you watch Dodgeball?"

"Your mom wouldn't let you watch Dodgeball?" Charlie asked, laughing a little.

"No she wouldn't," Boone said. "But she let us watch The Hangover so it doesn't make much sense. So no, we never watched it."

"Ah!!" Casey said, jumping to her feet. She grabbed Boone's arm and tried to drag him to his feet. "You are watching it now, we'll talk in the theater."

"This place has a home theater?"Boone said, letting Casey pull him up.

"Apparently," Dan said. "And it's awesome."

"Yeah it is, come on guys!" Casey said, still pulling on Boone's arm. They all left the room and the room then got much quieter.

"The room just got quieter," I said. "Casey is really loud."

"Tell me about it," James and Charlie said.

"Her cousins are pretty cool though," Simon said.

"Yeah they're awesome," Charlie said. "And I get to learn how to pole vault! I going to find Frank and ask him to get a pole." Charlie then got up and started to run out of the room, shouting Frank's name.

"Wait for me," James said, running after Charlie. After a few seconds, there was a big crash and Charlie yelled, "I'm okay."

"So…" I said, turning to face Simon and Derek.

"Want to play Mario Kart?" Simon asked excitedly.

"No!" Derek and I yelled at the same time.

"Fine, well I'm going to find Jake and play with him."

"Whatever Simon," I said. He got up from the couch and walked out of the room, shouting for Jake.

"I do not get his obsession with Mario Kart," Derek muttered.

"Me either. So… what do you want to do?"

"I think I'm going to go for a run outside," he said, getting up.

"Fine, go. Leave me here, all by myself," I said, trying to see what he would do.

"If you want me to stay…" he began before I started laughing.

"I'm kidding Derek," I said. "Really it's fine, go run, I know you need it."

"K, bye then," he said before getting off the couch. He was just about to leave the room when Frank came in, with James and Charlie in tow, both begging him to get pole vaulting poles.

"Will you guys go away?" Frank said. "I told you I'll get you some tomorrow if they have them in a store nearby. Ah Derek, there you are."

"Yeah Frank?" Derek said, turning back to face him.

"Someone told you about the day out tomorrow right?" When Derek nodded, he continued. "Well, since you are still wanted for Chloe's 'kidnapping,' you can either stay here with the girls, or go out in disguise."

"Disguise," Derek said quickly. I started laughing hysterically, picturing Derek staying home with all of us girls and everything that we could do to him.

"Yeah I figured. Just so you know though, Andrew's going to disguise you with magic, so you'll look a _lot_ different."

"Fine, as long as I don't have to stay here and I don't look like a girl."

"That is insulting!" I yelled. Derek just grunted before leaving the room. Then Frank came over to the couch, going towards the remote. I grabbed it first though, horrified at what he might turn on.

"Come on Chloe," he said. "I've been gone all day and want to relax and watch some TV."

"You haven't been gone all day," I said. "And you were watching TV for the whole morning. People always get the remote before me, so now I get to pick the show."

"Fine," Frank said, plopping down on the couch. I could hear Charlie and James arguing over something in the kitchen. Ignoring them, I flipped through the guide and couldn't find anything good. Eventually, I settled for Cash Cab and watched it until Tori came running in.

"Chloe," she said, coming over to sit by me. "I'm bored."

"Well go find Charlotte or Julie," I said. "I'm staying here."

"But they're both reading and told me to go away. So I'm stuck with you."

"No, there's always Alex, or Kyle, or Jake, or Simon, or-"

"I get it," she said quickly. "But they're all guys or guyish and I don't want to do something guyish. So do something with me."

"Well find something to do on the couch, 'cause I'm not leaving."

"Uhg, fine. I'll find something," Tori said before getting off the couch. After a few minutes, she came back with a box. She held it up and I saw it was a board game, Mall Madness.

"Uhg, do we have to play that?" I asked, annoyed.

"Yup, unless you want me to give you a makeover."

"No, I'll play the stupid game," I said, sighing. The game took a while to set up then we started playing, and it was stupid. All you did was "walk" around a mall and "buy" stuff. I was really boring and I just kept watching Cash Cab the whole time. Then when I won the game, Tori got pissed and wanted a rematch. I said no but she kept insisting and we eventually woke up Frank, who had fallen asleep on the couch.

"Will you guys shut up?" he said sleepily. "It's a stupid shopping game."

"Thank you," I said, turning to Tori and crossing my arms. "I'm not playing again."

"Well I'm bored!" she said, leaning back into the cushions.

"Go find someone else to bug then," I said, looking back at the TV. After a few minutes, Charlie came in and sat down by Tori.

"I'm bored!" he whined.

"Me too, and Chloe won't do anything with me!" Tori whined back.

"Hey, I played your stupid board game with you, so stop complaining," I said.

"Board game?" Charlie said, amused.

"Hey I was, am, bored. Who knew that a house filled with everything you could ever want could be so boring."

"I know, I figured that out the second day I came here. Then I just looked through all the Apples to Apples cards."

"I love that game!" Tori said. "Will you play it with me?"

"Yeah, sure, but we need more people. The game sucks with any less than three." Tori turned to me.

"Chloe?" she said.

"Fine I'll play," I said, sighing, knowing otherwise she would just keeping bugging me until I agreed to play.

"Yay," Charlie said. Now let's go find other people!"

"Okay," Tori said. They got up and left the room, leaving me alone with a snoring Frank. About a minute later, Casey, Dan, and Boone came into the room, laughing about something.

"Hey," Casey said, plopping down on the couch next to me. The guys followed her.

"Hi," I said. I turned to the guys. "Did you guys like Dodgeball?"

"Yes! It was hilarious!" Boone said.

"Yup," Dan said.

"So where is everyone?" Casey asked.

"Well," I began. "Derek went for a run outside, I think Simon and Jake are playing Mario Kart, Charlotte and Julie were reading, Charlie and Tori went to recruit players for Apples to Apples, and then I don't know about anyone else."

"Apples to Apples?" Casey asked. "I want to play! That game is awesome." Dan and Boone both wanted to play as well.

"Well then stay here," I said. "Once they get people to play I think they'll just come back here."

"Okay," Casey said before turning to the TV. "Ooo, Cash Cab." It was several minutes and two cab rides before Charlie and Tori came back in, with everyone but Libby, Anna, Claire, Derek, and Julie.

"Well we're going to need a bigger playing area," Charlie said. Jake went over to Frank.

"Dad!" he yelled right in his ear. Frank woke up immediately, arms and legs flailing. He looked up to see Jake laughing and glared. Jake stopped laughing and asked, "Want to play Apples to Apples?"

"No," Frank said quickly before going towards the stairs.

"Anyway," Charlie said. "Who wants to go play in the piano room? There's a lot of floor space there." We all agreed that it was a good place to play and then went over there. We all sat down in a circle on the floor. "So, everyone know how to play?" Everyone said yes and then Charlie started dealing out cards. Once he finished, he said, "Okay, then I go first." He picked up one of the green cards. "Surprising, unexpected, amazing."

I looked through my cards and found a perfect one, losing your backpack. Just look at how me and Tori reacted to Simon loosing his during our original escape. I handed that card to Charlie and he waited for everyone else to hand one in. Once he had them, he read the whole card for each. Simon and Tori both started laughing at my losing your backpack card and Charlie just stared at them.

"Long story," Tori said, looking at me. I smiled and nodded. Charlie just kept reading the cards and then choose the one Miles had put down.

"Bitter, sour, tart," Miles said after picking up a card.

We played Apples to Apples until after 7. It was really entertaining with so many people. Derek eventually came in and reluctantly joined the game, after a lot of complaining from me and Simon. Simon actually wound up getting the most cards in the end.

After we quit, Miles went to the kitchen and put like 10 frozen pizzas in the oven. The rest of us all headed to the TV room. Someone turned on America's Funniest Home Videos and we started watching that.

"Hey, does this place have any peanuts?" Boone asked suddenly. Casey started laughing before running to the pantry. She came back with a huge bag of peanuts and threw them at Boone.

"What is your guys' obsession with peanuts?" James asked.

"Back home there is this pizza place we always went to that gave out baskets of peanuts and you could just take off the shells and throw them on the ground, over the banister to the first floor, or at other people," Dan said before reaching over to grab some peanuts.

"I prefer the last one," Casey said. "And I don't even like peanuts."

"Yeah, the last one is pretty fun," Dan said. "Especially when you have some random person at the next table in a bright orange shirt as a target. But that one time when your dad threw some over the banister and they landed on those other people's pizza and in their drinks, that was classic."

"Oh my God that was awesome!" Casey yelled. They started telling us about the reaction of the people and what happened afterwards. It was pretty funny and soon even Derek was laughing. Then Miles called us and said that the pizzas were done. Everyone got up and headed towards the kitchen. Boone still had the bag of peanuts and smiled evilly while dumping some shells into Casey's sweatshirt hood. When he saw me looking, he just put a finger to his lips and I nodded. Then we actually got into the kitchen and the mad dash for pizza began. I only got two pieces before it was all gone. I went to the table where Derek was already sitting, with one and a half pizzas.

"Could you be anymore of a pig?" I asked, sitting down next to him.

"Someone could," Derek said, motioning towards James who had two whole pizzas who was heading towards Dan, Boone, and Casey that all sat at one end of the table, already flicking peanut shells at each other.

"Well they are definitely cousins," Simon said as he sat down next to me.

"Yeah," I said, smiling. "But that does look kind of fun."

"Is that a challenge?" Simon said, looking at me.

"Maybe…"

"Then the peanut war is on!" he yelled. He ran over to the peanut bag. When he grabbed it though, Boone flung his arm away.

"Get your own bag," he said. "Or join us."

"Cool, Chloe get over here!" I sighed and moved my plate closer to the people who were flicking peanuts. As soon as I sat down, Simon started flicking peanut shells at me. I smiled again and flicked some back at him. Soon, peanut shells completely covered my lap and the half of the table we were flicking them on. After a few minutes, Simon started throwing whole peanuts towards Derek, trying to get him to come over and join us. I started doing the same and Derek eventually got so annoyed that he came over behind Simon and pulled his chair backwards so he fell onto the ground. We all started laughing hysterically except Simon, who started calling Derek every name he could think of.

"Just shut up Simon," Derek said, picking up Simon's chair and sitting down in it. He then started flicking some shells at me and with his werewolf superstrength, they really stung. I then grabbed one of James' discarded pizza plates and used it as a shield. Simon got back up and kept throwing whole peanuts at Derek's head.

This went on until almost 9:00 when Claire came in and told us we had to clean up all the mess. That took us around 30 minutes. Then Derek and James discovered that someone had made brownies earlier today and started devouring them. I again only got two small pieces before they were all gone. After that, I went and watched Titanic, which Charlotte had turned on. The movie ended at 11:00 and by then, Charlotte and Julie were both bawling while Casey was making fun of them because of it.

I decided to go to bed then, considering I would probably be up until after 3:00 in the morning tomorrow. I headed upstairs along with Casey, Julie, and James. Casey was about to go into her room when I noticed the peanuts were still in her hood.

"Casey," I said.

"What?" she said, turning towards me.

"Check you hood." She did and grabbed the peanuts.

"James!" she yelled, glaring at him as he headed towards his room down the hall.

"It wasn't me!" he said, turning around. "Blame your cousins!"

"Uhg," Casey said before going into the room and slamming the door. I shook my head before going into my room. I was just pulling on my pajama pants when a huge crash came from across the hall.

"James!" Casey screamed.

"Okay that was me!" James yelled from his room. I rolled my eyes again and then turned off the light and headed towards my bed. As soon as I sat down though, the bed collapsed under me. I screamed as the mattress hit the ground.

"That was me too!" James yelled. I got off the ground and went to look at what James had done to make the bed collapse. Just as I found the screw on the floor that had made the whole thing fall, a knock sounded at me door.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Are you okay?" Derek asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

"Uh, yeah. James just made my bed collapse and I was on it when it did."

"Oh, okay," he said. "Do you need help putting it back up?"

"Sure," I said. "Come in." The door creaked open and Derek walked in, still in his normal clothes. I held up the screw. "Apparently he loosened this."

"Then there should be another," Derek said, walking over and kneeling on the ground next to me. He looked at the ground by the bed and then leaned under it. I tried not to look at the strip of skin on his back that was exposed when his shirt moved up. He pulled back, holding another screw. "Found it."

"Okay," I said. "Now where do we put them?"

"Um… I'll lift up the mattress and you find where the screws came from, okay?"

"Sure," I said. He lifted up the mattress and the frame below and I looked underneath. I found where the screws went and told Derek. He held out the screws and told me to screw them in. I reached for them my hand brushed against his. I blushed and quickly grabbed the screws and pulled back. I screwed them in and then got out from under the now repaired bed. I sat up and looked at Derek. "Thanks."

"No problem," he said, getting up and heading towards the door.

"Be careful, he might have messed with yours too."

"I will," Derek said, turning back around to face me. "Night Chloe."

"Good night," I said quietly. He then left the room and closed the door behind him. I went over and turned off the light again before going over to the bed. I got on carefully to make sure it wouldn't collapse again. When it didn't, I lay down and closed my eyes. I fell asleep quickly.

**So, who liked it? That was another long chapter! Do you guys like Dan and Boone? I based them off of my actual cousins as much as I could but it was sort of hard. They're basically are like that though, and that is how we act when we're together, completely immature and crazy. The "I got cha where I want ya, now I'm gonna eat ya" thing was part of a story that "Boone" told me and my sisters a few years ago and we still talk about it a lot, so it's sort of an inside joke. I saw them on Tuesday and we went to that restaurant that was mentioned in this chapter and we did actually have a peanut war. Then "Dan" started flicking them at this one lady behind me that had a really bright orange shirt on and it was really fun. We never actually had peanuts land on someone else's table though, it was just something we always talked about when we threw shells over the banister. My friend who Julie is based off of did meet "Dan" once and she thought he was hot and I started laughing hysterically. That is so something she would do. I went trick or treating with her and some other friends on Halloween and every guy who was around our age that answered the door she said was hot. Like how I put Ben 10 into the story? I just love that show too much! So who else loves Apples to Apples? That game is awesome and hilarious. I hate that stupid Mall Madness game though, my sisters make me play it and it's like torture. So please review and I'll update as soon as possible!**


	16. Girls' Night In

**Okay, I am so so so so incredibly sorry for not updating! I started rewatching the first season of Lost and then couldn't stop so I'm now on the third season. Watching it has become basically my life and I just haven't had time to write. Sorry. On completely unrelated side note, I fell in love with Boone while watching the first season and actually cried when he died. I never cry! So I am now glad that I name my cousin's character after him so it is sort of a tribute to the original Boone. Sorry again. And I have also had a lot of homework and am supposed to be doing an essay on Steven Spielberg right now except I'm typing this for you guys! Sorry again. So who loved the Reckoning? I finished it in less than one day with almost no breaks and then just got it back today from my friend who got it from another friend who got it from another friend who got it from me and I was so happy! I'm not going to give away anything here, just that it was AWESOME but not as good as the Awakening in my opinion. Again, I am very sorry for the wait and hope this chapter is worth it. Very long, as you can see. Now, to the chapter! Sorry for any of the usual as well as the wait and I don't own DP!.**

Chloe's POV

"Bye Chloe!" Simon yelled, running over and hugging me. The guys were all leaving now for their guy's night out, leaving me to deal with the girl's night in. I was dreading it. Charlotte and Julie had been following me constantly for almost three hours, trying to tell me how much "fun" we would have, and well… it sure didn't seem like fun to me.

"Bye Simon," I said unenthusiastically, giving him a one-armed hug. He pulled back and looked at me.

"Well, have fun with all your girl buddies!"

"Shut up, you know I'm not excited for this."

"Yeah well, still, try to have some fun. I will!"

"Just shut up Simon," I said, hitting his arm. "Bye, and have fun."

"Thanks and I will," he said before heading to the garage where some of the guys were already loading into the car. I sighed and sat back down on my chair at the table, where I had been eating a really late lunch. Just as I stuffed some potato chips into my mouth, Boone, James, and Casey came in.

"Hola," James said, stealing the chip bag from me.

"Hi to you too James," I said.

"Actually I was talking to the chips," he said. Casey hit his arm.

"You really should try to be nicer to people," she said before attempting to grab the bag from James.

"So are you looking forward to this Casey?" I asked.

"Uh, no. In fact, I would much rather be with the guys. They are doing all those awesome things and we're going to be stuck here, probably watching some stupid chick-flick or doing makeovers." She shivered. "Yeah I think I'll be hiding in my room most of the time, care to join me?"

"From what I heard, I'll say maybe."

"Yeah that's definitely something you might want to do," Casey said, still trying to take some of the chips.

"Well," Boone said. "as much fun as your little girly night sounds, we really better be going."

"I guess so," James said. He handed the bag of chips to Boone before hugging Casey. "Bye Case."

"I hate you," she said, still hugging him back.

"No you just envy me." Casey hit him again.

"Right now, yes, and I hate you because of it, now bye James."

"Adios," James said before grabbing the chips back from Boone and taking them with him to the car. Casey turned to Boone.

"I hate you too you know," she said. "In fact I hate all of you guys."

"Me too," I said.

"Don't blame me," Boone said, raising his hands up in defense. "I didn't choose what we're going to do. Now can I get a hug from my little cousin?"

"Yes you can," Casey said, giving Boone a hug. "Bye, have fun while I am tortured."

"Thanks, and you have Chloe," he said, turning to me. "Bye Chloe."

"Bye Boone," I said. He then left the room and Derek came in just after Boone exited.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi, James didn't take all the chips did he?" Derek asked before heading to the pantry.

"He better not have!" Casey said, running after Derek and looking into the pantry. "Phew, still a few left."

"Well good for you," I said. Casey came back to the table, followed by Derek who was had two bags of chips. "You really are a pig."

"Growing werewolf," he said, heading towards the kitchen entrance. "Bye Chloe."

"Hey!" I yelled, for some odd reason jumping up and running after him. He turned towards me right as I jumped and hugged him. He seemed really surprised, then relaxed and hugged me back. "You don't get to leave with just a 'bye,'" I said. I then let go of him and stepped back. "Now go, unless you want to stay here with us girls."

"Alright I'm leaving," Derek said walking out of the room. I could feel Casey's gaze on me and was about to ask "What," before I heard Andrew talking to Derek in the other room.

"Hey, we still need to magically disguise you," he said. _Well that's sound interesting_. I followed the voices into the TV room, where Derek was groaning.

"That sounds fun!" I said. "Can I watch?"

"Sure," Andrew said. Then he turned back to Derek. "Okay, now you might feeling a tingling sensation but this shouldn't hurt." Andrew raise his hands up and started wiggling his fingers. Little blue sparks began surrounding his hands and then shot over to Derek and began circling him. Slowly, his features began to change, one at a time. His hair shortened and became blond. His face cleared up completely and his nose got pointy. Then he shrank a few inches and his muscles shrank a tiny bit. The only real thing that didn't change were his amazing eyes. The blue sparks disappeared and the disguise spell finished. All in all, he still looked pretty hot.

"Okay, done," Andrew said. "Care to take a look at yourself?"

"I'm good," Derek said, same voice as ever. As he started walking towards the garage, I got an idea.

"Hey Andrew?"

"Yes Chloe?"

"Can you change his voice at all, like make it falsetto or something?"

"Yes!" Casey yelled from the doorway to the kitchen, where she had apparently been watching the whole thing. "That would be awesome! Do it Andrew, PLEASE!"

"Um, I don't think Derek would like that very much, right Derek?" Andrew said, turning to face him.

"Definitely not," Derek said. "I'm fine like this."

"Aw," I said. "Can you just do it for a few seconds?" Andrew looked at Derek who shook his head enthusiastically.

"Come on Derek," he said. "That would be interesting."

"Yeah, you're the Science Guy," I said. "Think of it as an experiment." Derek just stared at me. I glared at him and sighed.

"Okay for ten seconds and that's it," he said.

"Yay!" Casey and I said at the same time. Then I added, "Do it Andrew!" and she said, "And make him sound like Elmo!"

"Alright," Andrew said, sighing. He raised his arms and wiggled his fingers again. The blue sparks reappeared and then disappeared very quickly. "Okay Derek, say something."

"Can we go now?" Derek said, his voice extremely high, but not like Elmo's. Casey, Andrew, and I all started cracking up immediately and Derek began growling, or what would have been growling but now just sounded like a really high squeaking sound. Then Tori came in. She stared at Derek.

"Uh, who is that?" she said, pointing at Derek.

"Derek," I said.

"Whoa," Tori said, still staring him. "Good job Andrew."

"Ha, Tori thinks you're hot Derek," Casey said. "That's so cute!"

"No!" Tori said too quickly. I started laughing again.

"Can you change my voice back now?" Derek said, voice still extremely high. Tori just continued staring and then cracked up, falling onto the floor and holding her sides.

"Andrew, you are awesome," she said between laughs.

"Please Andrew?" Derek asked again.

"Whoa, who's the dude with the weird voice?" Kyle said, coming into the room with Charlie in tow. Kyle had his hair in a bunch of pony tails, all arrange to make a mohawk, and a purple barrette randomly shoved into it. "And why is Tori freaking out?"

"Uh, what's with your hair?" I said, pointing at it. "Did Julie do that?"

"No!" Kyle said loudly, acting insulted. "I will never let Julie touch my hair. I told Alex to put my hair in a fohawk. Now who's the guy?"

"That's Derek," Casey said. Kyle and Charlie both stared at Derek, looking like they were going to break out laughing at any second. Casey looked back at me. "And he wears that barrette a lot, or another Power Puff Girls one. And fohawks are sort of his obsession."

"Yeah, yeah," Derek said, voice still really high. "That's great and all, but can you change my voice back now Andrew?"

"Okay fine," Andrew said. He did the whole blue spark thing and then lowered his hands again. "It's back to normal."

"Finally," Derek said in his normal deep voice.

"Aww," Charlie said. "You should have left it like that! Andrew can you make my voice like that?"

"Me too! And can you teach me that spell?" Kyle asked. Andrew agreed and put a disguise spell on each of them, promising to teach it to Kyle at their next training session. They started saying random things, testing out their new voices and then ran to the garage to show James.

"Well now that that's over," Derek said. "Bye, have fun during your girl night."

"Shut up Derek," Casey and I said at the same time. He just laughed a little and then just headed for the garage as well.

"Bye girls," Andrew said, leaving the room as well. After about a minute, I could hear the door slam and then some cars start up. Apparently, the guys had officially left.

"And let the torture begin," Casey muttered. Just then, Charlotte and Julie came running into the room.

"Makeover time!" Julie yelled. Tori immediately perked up and went over to them. I however, wasn't so excited, not at all actually.

"Just go," Casey said. "They won't stop bothering you until you agree to go. Trust me, I know."

"Oh joy," I muttered, following Casey over to where Charlotte and Julie were talking to Tori.

"Yeah it is so awesome!" Julie was saying. Seeing us, she said, "Oh good! Casey you aren't going to be putting up a fight!"

"You only get to do my hair," Casey said, sighing. "Any makeup, and I will have James kill you."

"Okay!" Charlotte said. "Come on guys. To the secret bathroom!" She and Julie then ran towards the stairs, with Tori close behind. I lagged behind with Casey.

"Secret bathroom?" I asked her.

"Yeah," Casey said. "It's this huge bathroom between Charlotte and Julie's room and the doors to it are hidden in their closets. Weird, I know."

"Yeah it is. Is it really a secret though?"

"None of the guys know about it, well besides Miles. But he grew up here, so he had to know about it."

"Okay, then I guess that is considered secret then," I said, following her up the stairs. We got to the door that had Charlotte's name on it and went inside. Her room was basically the same layout as mine, but with green walls and another dresser. The closet was at the right side of the room, and Casey went over to it. She slid open one of the doors, and stepped into the closet. I leaned around her to see as small knob in the wall, mostly hidden by clothes. Casey pulled it and a section of the wall popped out, forming a doorway. She walked inside and I followed.

The room really was huge. Two whole walls had counters running around their entire length. The other two had the doors that led into it, one from Julie's room and the other we just came through. There were like 20 chairs scattered across the room, three of which were occupied by Julie, Charlotte, and Alex. Tori was running around the room, freaking out about all the make up.

"Yay! Everyone's here now!" Charlotte said. "Alex goes first."

Everyone got some sort of makeover and it took almost four hours to do so. It was horrible. I was forced to get a complete makeover, and actually didn't look that bad, but having them put it on was tortuous. They took a whole hour to do it, and it was really annoying. They also spent an hour doing just Casey's hair, and she looked good too. After both of us were done, Casey pulled out her iPod and we watched Marley and Me while everyone else was obsessing over lip gloss and nail polish.

"Okay people!" Julie said. "Now we eat and play never-have-I-ever."

"Question," Tori said. "What is never-have-I-ever?"

"It's originally a drinking game but we play it with non-alcohol beverages," Casey said. "You go around in a circle with everyone saying something they never have done. Then if you have done the thing that the person said they never have done, you take a sip from whatever you're drinking. Then whoever has to pee first looses."

"That sounds fun," I said.

"It is," Alex said. "Now can we eat? I'm starving." We all headed back downstairs and to the kitchen, where Libby, Claire, and Anna were all sitting around talking.

"Hey girls," Libby said. "The food is in the oven."

"Thanks," Casey said, going over to the oven and pulling out some Chinese takeout.

"Well thanks," Alex said. We agreed to play outside on the patio and Tori and I went to go get some pop. I got a 12 case of Coke and Tori got one of Sprite.

"Isn't this fun!" Tori said. "I haven't done something like this since like sixth grade."

"Yeah, this is _great_," I said sarcastically, walking towards the back door. We reached it and headed to where everyone else was already sitting.

"Got the drinks," Tori said, holding up her box.

"Cool," Casey said. "Now get over here so we can eat." Tori and I hurried over and all of us grabbed some food and a drink. Then we sat down in a circle on the ground, because the ground is just more fun. I sat between Casey and Julie.

"Okay," Charlotte said. "I'll start. And everyone be honest okay? I have gone shopping in Paris."

"Uhg you do that every time," Alex said, taking a sip of her Sprite.

"Wait," I said. "I thought we were supposed to do something we haven't done."

"Well we also say really random things that we have done, then if you haven't done something you drink," Charlotte said.

"Great," I said, opening my Coke and taking a sip. Everyone else took a sip of their drink as well.

"My turn," Alex said. "Never have I ever watched Survivor."

"That's a stupid one Alex," Casey said, taking a sip of her drink. I did as well before Tori went.

"Never have I ever gone to a baseball game," she said. Suddenly, Casey, Charlotte, and Alex cracked up and Julie glared at them. Tori looked at them. "How is that funny?"

"It isn't," Julie said. "It isn't funny at all guys."

"I thought it was hilarious," Casey said.

"What are you guys talking about?" I said, very confused.

"Inside joke," Charlotte said, looking at Julie. "And it was such a good one."

"Um, there is a very confused Chloe still sitting here," I said.

"A very confused Tori as well," Tori said.

"Okay sorry," Casey said. "But I don't think Julie really wants us to tell you, so I won't. Now drink if you have been to a baseball game." Everyone did.

"Never have I ever worn a dress willingly," Casey said. Everyone besides Alex drank.

"Uh… never have I ever left the country," I said. Again, everyone besides Alex drank.

"Never have I ever had a hamster," Julie said. Me, Charlotte, and Casey didn't drink.

"Never have I ever eaten snails," Charlotte said. Tori drank.

"When did you eat snails?" I asked Tori.

"When I went to some fancy French restaurant in New York," Tori said, shrugging.

"Okay then," Alex said. She looked over at Casey, smiling evilly. "Never have I ever been in love."

"God you suck," Casey said, sipping some of her Coke. "You guys can't gang up on me again."

"Alright fine," Charlotte said. Suddenly, my inner voice started ranting again. _Ahem, why aren't you drinking?__ What are you talking about? __Oh I don't know. Maybe that you really, really like Derek.__ What? Are you saying that I love him? __I don't know, do you?__ Oh now you've gone all psychologist on me? Seriously, I don't love Derek. __Just think about it._ I did, and the more I did, the more I started thinking that maybe my annoying inner voice was right. I had liked guys before, really liked them, but none of them ever came close to Derek. I never got that weird feeling when I liked any other guys like I do with Derek. Never even talked to them at all, actually, and I certainly talk to Derek a lot. And what was with me hugging him earlier? Why did I do that? Ah, I hate my mind! _I heard that. Now will you just say you maybe love him? That will make me happy.__ Fine. Maybe I love him. __Yay! Now drink because you are unsure._ I did and then realized that Casey was staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"You have been three sleepovers in a row?" she asked. Then I realized that I was zoned out talking to my inner voice longer than I thought.

"Uh no," I said. "Guess I sort of zoned out for a second."

"Yeah okay," she said with a really weird look on her face. "Well it's your turn."

"Oh," I said. "Never have I ever… knitted something." Everyone besides Casey drank.

"Never have I ever jumped rope for more than ten minutes straight," Julie said. Casey drank.

"I _have_ jumped on a pogo stick for more than ten times," Charlotte said.

"You are so mean," Julie said, taking a sip of her drink.

The game continued like that four about an hour, making it right around 9:00. Apparently, Julie and Charlotte had the whole night scheduled because as soon as we finished playing, Julie said, "Now we go watch _Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging_!"

"Oh God," Casey said, no longer walking towards the house and a terrified look coming onto her face.

"What is it?" I asked, stopping as well.

"It is a really stupid and scary movie about perverted British people," she said, turning to me. "You don't like chick-flicks right?"

"Not particularly, why?"

"Then trust me, you do not want to see this movie," she said, voice and face completely serious.

"Okay fine," I said. "Where are we hiding then? I have a feeling Charlotte and Julie will try to track us down."

"How about we go to my room, lock ourselves inside, and watch _Star Trek_ on my laptop?"

"That sounds fun," I said.

"Cool," she said, starting to walk back towards the house. When we got inside, Casey turned to the left, towards the TV room and the fastest route to the stairs, and also the complete opposite direction from the theater.

"Hey!" Julie yelled. I turned to see her just by the entrance to the theater, like she was waiting for us. "Where are you going! You are going to watch the movie Casey!"

"First," Casey began. "I've already seen it when you forced me to the first time. And second, I am not watching it again. Chloe run!" She then took off towards the TV room and I followed. I could hear Julie running after us, yelling that we have to watch the stupid movie. She seemed to stop once she reached the stairs, stomping and screaming in frustration. Casey started laughing and I did too. We reached her room and she opened the door, hustling me inside. I went in quickly and watched as she came in, closed the door, and locked it.

"There," she said, turning around. "Not exactly witch-proof, but they don't want us to watch it that badly."

"Okay," I said. Then I turned around to look at her room. It was a little bigger than mine, with a bed, two dressers, a nightstand, a closet, a really packed bookshelf, and a small couch. There were clothes scattered all around the floor and a bunch of stuff piled on the couch and dressers. The walls were a dark blue color. "Nice room."

"Haha, very funny," Casey said, going over to a corner where her laptop was charging. "Yes I know it is a mess, and I like it this way."

"Fine by me," I said. "You should have seen my room back home. It was a mess too, maybe worse than this."

"Thanks," she said, unplugging her laptop and going to the couch. I followed her and sat down on the cushion that didn't have any junk on it. She turned to me, "Do you mind if I astral project to see what the guys are doing?"

"Nah, I want to know too," I said.

"Cool," she said, pushing all the stuff on the other cushion onto the floor. She handed me the laptop. "Can you start it and then bring up iTunes? That's where I have _Star Trek_." I nodded. "Okay cool, be back in a few minutes, feel free to look around." Then she leaned back on the couch, closed her eyes, and then went sort of limp.

"Uh Casey?" I said, waving my hand in front of her face. "You gone?" When she didn't move, I took that as a yes. I turned on her laptop and looked around the room some more while waiting for it load up. I saw a bulletin board over by her bed and went to look at it. I looked at it for a minute then went to look at her bookshelf. Then I saw a picture on her nightstand. It was of a guy who looked in his 30s, with dark blond hair and standing on a beach and he looked a lot like James. I picked up the picture to look at the guy more closely, trying to figure out who he was. I looked back at the couch to see if there was any family resemblance between Casey and the guy, but Casey was gone. I scanned the room, but she wasn't there. I even looked under the bed, but she wasn't there.

"Casey?" I said shakily. "Casey where are you?" I headed towards the door to see if she went out. As I was halfway there, Casey suddenly appeared in front of me. I screamed a little and jumped. She looked up at me, beaming.

"Whoa," she said. "That was fricken' awesome!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked, really confused. "Where did you go?"

"I guess I teleported or something," Casey said, still smiling like an idiot. "I was going to fake-kick Dan in the shin and then I wasn't just an astral projection anymore and I actually kicked him. So my body disappeared? I actually did teleport?"

"Yeah, you were completely gone."

"That is so cool!" Suddenly, her smile disappeared completely. "Wait, why did that happen? Shamans are not supposed to do that! This is not good." She fell down on the couch, sighing a lot.

"Um…" I said, trying to figure out something to say. I sat down on the couch next to her. "Maybe you're just a stronger shaman than most. Or maybe you just got a special shaman power, from some sort of mutation or something."

"Chloe I know what you're thinking," Casey said, looking up at me. "You think it's genetic modification, just like you, Simon, Derek, Tori, and all the other Edison Group subjects."

"N-no I wasn't," I said quickly. I had actually been thinking that, but I didn't want Casey to think that. I looked back up at her face and saw how serious she was. I gave in. "Okay, yes. I was thinking that, but it doesn't mean that you are a subject. Maybe you just are more powerful than normal."

"Yeah sure," Casey said sarcastically. Then she relaxed a little and sat up straight. "I'll just ask Boone tomorrow if he knows if teleporting is actually possible for a shaman. And if he doesn't, I'll have to call my dad. If I am a subject, hopefully he'll just tell me and admit that he lied."

"I'm impressed that you are so okay with possibly being genetically modified," I said.

"Yeah I just always embrace the worst and then hope for the better," Casey said, shrugging. Then she jumped off the couch. "Now let's watch _Star Trek_!" She headed towards the same corner where her laptop was charging earlier and kicked the wall. A part of the wall popped out and she pulled it out to reveal a microwave.

"What is with all the secret things in this house?" I asked.

"I know right!" Casey said. She pressed a few buttons on the microwave and then pressed start. It went on and beeped after like five seconds. She opened the door and pulled out two buckets of popcorn, exactly like the ones in the theater.

"What was that?" I asked.

"An enchanted microwave," Casey said, coming back to the couch and giving me a bucket. "I helped Jake blackmail James a while ago and he did that for me in return. If you punch a certain number in, it will take a certain food or drink from downstairs if we have any. Pretty cool huh?"

"It's awesome! Does anyone else know about it?"

"Only James. But only I know the codes for stuff, so he can't get anything. Want some ice cream? Charlie has a stash hidden behind the frozen peas so you can't see it at the actual freezer, but with this thing it just takes it!"

"Vanilla please." She went over, pushed a few more buttons, then waited for it to beep. Her talking about James reminded me of the picture of the guy I was still holding. "Hey Casey?"

"Yeah?" she said, coming back with two tubs of ice cream and spoons.

"Who's this dude in the picture," I asked, holding it out to her.

"Ahh!" she yelled when she saw the picture. "That's Josh Holloway. He plays my favorite TV show character ever and I think he is gorgeous, even if he is like 40. Every time I watched the show he was in, I would just stare at his hair and then completely miss like half of conversations!" She handed me the vanilla ice cream and a spoon.

"Okay, and why does he look so much like James?"

"I don't know! I would have sworn they were related or something but they aren't! It's so weird. Now let's watch the movie!" She brought up iTunes and then got the movie started. She then began devouring her ice cream as the scene started. Then she turned to me. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Uh… no," I said, a little scared of what it might be. I stuffed some of my popcorn into my mouth.

"Do you like Derek?" I immediately started choking on the popcorn and it took me a while to calm down. When I did, I said, "N-n-no. O-of c-course not. W-why would y-you think t-that?" all in one breath and in less than 5 seconds. Great cover up Chloe.

"Come on," Casey said, turning her whole body to face me. "If you do, it's fine. I won't tell anyone. I just am really good at figuring out if somebody likes someone after I got together with James. When you hugged him before he left and then you like froze up after Alex said 'Never have I ever been in love,' it just got me thinking. So do you?" _Go ahead, tell her. She said she won't say anything and you need advice from other people besides me.__ But you are me. __Exactly._

"Okay," I sighed. "Yes I like him. I like him a lot. Possibly even love, that's why I zoned out during the game."

"I knew it!" Casey yelled. When she looked at my face she said, "Sorry. So are you going to tell him?"

"What?! No, definitely not. That would be really weird if he didn't like me back."

"You are oblivious," Casey said in a you're-pathetic tone. "You should have seen the look on his face when you hugged him. It was so cute. And I can tell that he likes you a lot more than Simon does. You do know that he likes you right?"

"Yes, and it's really annoying."

"Well at least you aren't entirely blind. But seriously Chloe, Derek likes you. A lot. Hell, you might even be his mate."

"Okay that just confuses me," I said. "What exactly is the mate thing?"

"Oh man. When a werewolf meets someone they love, they become bound to them, figuratively of course. They will never love another person and they can never get over their mate. Sucks for them if the person doesn't love them back, but that rarely happens," Casey said, laughing slightly ever so often. "I know that is _so_ cheesy but that's the way it works."

"Then you and James are um… mates?"

"Uhg, yes and no. I mean, we haven't, well you know but I am the only person he will ever love and the same is for me with him so yeah, we are."

"And what makes you think that I am Derek's mate?"

"The way he looks at you. He almost never does, and when he does, it's at discreet little moments when no one could tell what he's thinking unless they can read people really well. Which I can do. So yes, I think you are his mate, or at least he likes you a lot. And he might not have realized it yet. From what James has told me, Derek wasn't taught everything werewolf. But anyway, I really think you should tell him. The worst he could do is say he doesn't like you."

"Thanks for the encouragement."

"Well I'm just saying that's the worst case scenario. I'm 99.8% sure that he likes you, so rejection will probably not happen."

"Okay thanks," I said, getting kind of annoyed. "Now can we drop this subject and watch the movie?"

"Yup!" Casey said, turning back to the laptop and stuffing popcorn into her mouth.

We watched the movie with only a few comments, mostly Casey's about how hot Kirk's eyebrows were, and Casey quoting like every other sentence. The whole time, I thought about what Casey had said. I had no idea if Derek really did like me or not, but I didn't think Casey would lie to me. I didn't want to tell him that I liked him, then just have him reject me. Then things would be all awkward and weird and just sucky between us. And I had no idea how to tell him either. By the time the movie finished, I still hadn't made up my mind.

"We better go join the others," Casey said, turning off the laptop and heading towards the door. When she saw that I wasn't following her, she turned around and asked, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," I said, getting off the couch and following her into the hall. "Just thinking."

"Completely understandable. It took me like two months to convince myself to tell James I liked him."

"Yeah and how did you do that?"

"Oh… Uh… Well I didn't, James told me first. But I had convinced myself to tell him, just didn't get around to it before he did."

"Oh that's a lot of help."

"Sorry, but I can help you think of how if you want. I've been helping Julie figure out how to tell... Never mind."

"Casey, Chloe!" Charlotte said, running into us as we stepped into the TV room. "You missed the movie."

"Yeah, 'missed,'" Casey muttered. Then louder she said, "Yeah, so what's next?"

"Cupcakes and sundaes!" Charlotte said, running back to the kitchen.

"Oooo, dessert," Casey said, running after Charlotte and I followed her. Everyone else was crowded around the island, mixing dye into frosting.

"Hey peoples," Casey said, taking a couple of cupcakes and a tub of chocolate frosting. Then, her face lit up like she remembered something. "Guess what!"

"What Case?" Alex sighed, sounding exasperated.

"Well if you guys aren't interested, I won't tell you about how I teleported," she said, stuffing half a cupcake into her mouth. Then, all at one time, the rest of the girls said, "What?!" I started laughing.

"Ha, I knew you guys would be interested," Casey said. Then she launched into basically the same story she had told me. No one, however mentioned genetic modification this time, they just said how awesome teleporting was.

"So what were the guys doing when you went to see them?" I asked.

"They were playing spoons in the awesome lounge at the hotel," Casey said.

"I like spoons," Julie said. "Let's play that next!" We decorated cupcakes and made sundaes for a little an hour and then it was midnight. The adults had apparently gone to bed a while ago so it was just us. Casey went to get cards from her room while Charlotte got spoons and everyone else crowded around the table by the couch in the TV room. Once they got back, we played spoons for almost an hour until Tori got angry at loosing every time and started throwing spoons at people.

We couldn't figure out anything to do after that, so we just talked about random stuff and shared weird stories until almost 3. Then Casey decided go see what the guys were doing again. She laid on the couch and then astral projected out of there. Julie then talked us into drawing on her face. We all agreed but I think I was the only sane one, everyone else seemed hyped up on caffeine. They were all sort of loopy and couldn't really stay still. We colored on her for like 10 minutes before she came back to her body.

"What the hell are you guys doing?!" she yelled. Everyone started cracking up and she just glared. I clamed down first.

"So what were they doing?" I asked.

"Running around the hotel playing hide-and-seek shirtless."

"What?" we all said.

"They all had master key cards and were playing hide and go seek through the entire hotel and none of them had shirts on. It looked really fun." I started thinking about Derek playing hide-and-seek shirtless and couldn't get the image out of my head. I started blushing.

"That sounds really fun," Julie said in a dreamy voice. I couldn't help but laugh along with everyone else.

"Julie," Alex began. "You have one of the oddest brains ever."

"Just because you don't appreciate the idea of six teenage guys running around shirtless doesn't mean that everyone else if weird Alex," Tori said. "Wait, I don't appreciate the thought of several of those guys shirtless. Such as Wolf Boy and Jake."

"That is mean," Charlotte said. "And Derek was pretty hot without his shirt on, and not that bad with it on either."

"Ah, I am not hearing this!" Tori said, plugging her ears. "You guys should have seen him when we were at Lyle House and all his wolfy stuff hadn't really happened yet. He looked _really_ bad. Right Chloe?"

"Um, uh," I said, trying to figure out what to say, which wasn't easy when everyone was staring at me. "W-well he wasn't _that_ bad. He definitely looks better now."

"Uhg," Tori said. "Why do you have to be so nice all the time?"

"I don't know, I just can't be mean."

"Well let's teach you!" Tori exclaimed. "Who wants to help me teach Chloe how to be mean?"

"I will," Julie said.

"Julie, every time you try to be mean, it just makes you look pathetic," Charlotte said. "I'll help. I actually can be mean, right baseball girl?" Julie glared at her.

"I'll try," Casey said. "This might be interesting."

"Okay," Tori said, turning to me. "Insult me."

"Um… your hair looks weird?"

"That's not good enough. Insult me, personality wise."

"But that would be mean."

"Exactly! Now say something mean."

"You are… annoying?"

"Uhg not good enough! Say something-"

"Try saying something mean about someone else," Casey suggested. Then she smiled. "Simon for example."

"Okay," I said. "He is really irritating, not as funny as he thinks, and is sort of obsessive."

"Wow," Tori said. "That was actually kind of mean. And here I was, thinking you like loved him."

"I definitely don't love him," I said quickly.

"Alright," Charlotte said. "Now try someone else."

They kept trying to get me to insult people for like 30 minutes. By then, Julie had fallen asleep on the couch and Alex had started watching some random movie on TV. We watched the movie until it ended at 4:30, then decided to all go upstairs. We would all sleep in Casey's room, which was the biggest out of all of ours. Casey wanted to wake up Julie and did so by screaming in her ear. Julie got mad and stalked upstairs to her room to get all of her stuff. Since me and Tori didn't have sleeping bags, we got the couch and the bed. I wound up getting stuck with the couch, but it was better than the floor. I went to my room to change into my pajamas then headed back down the hall to Casey's room. We wound up just watching random and stupid, but somehow hilarious, videos on YouTube. Charlotte showed us these videos made by some British guy named Charlie, not our Charlie just some random guy, and then Casey brought up the Elmo prank calls which were all awesome. At 5:30, we decided it was late, or early, enough to go to bed. Casey went to see what the guys were doing one last time but when she got back, only me and Alex were still up.

"Half of them were passed out in random places in the hotel," Casey said. "The others were playing Huluhbalo."

"Um, what's that?" Alex asked sleepily.

"Well I think it's actually called Hullabaloo, but it's an awesome little kid game when you have to move from one little pad to another in different ways, like hopping, pretending to be an airplane, slither, and spin. It's so much fun!"

"Yeah I can't picture any of the guys doing that," I said.

"Yeah especially Derek right?" Casey said. "I was shocked when I saw he was playing."

"He was?!"

"Yeah, and he does a pretty good frog imitation."

"Wow. Okay, can we go to sleep now?"

"Yeah," Casey said before sliding into her sleeping bag. I climbed onto the couch and pulled the blanket I had brought over me. I was asleep in probably less than a minute.

**So, worth the wait? Probably not right? I am really sorry again, but next chapter is Derek's POV, that's something to look forward to! So I'm sorry if any part of this chapter sucked, like Chloe figuring out she might love Derek, or didn't make any sense but I tried my best. If you guys have any questions or anything, feel free to PM me. Derek getting his voice changed was awesome though wasn't it? I had just watch the Elmo prank call videos (you guys should go look them up, they are hilarious and even made my dad crack up, that never happens!) before writing that part and could get the thought of Derek having Elmo's voice out of my head. And that one movie, **_**Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, **_**my friends forced me to watch it and it was the worst movie I have ever seen, and it left me scared for life. "Kyle" was watching it with us and afterwards he started acting put some of the stuff and it was just wrong. I HATE that movie. And I love Hullabaloo as well, it is an amazing game that is so much fun because it is so stupid! Oh, and I LOVE Josh Holloway!! He plays James AKA "Sawyer" on Lost and is so amazing! He basically is James in this story so if you can't picture him, go look up Josh Holloway. So who agrees that teleporting is awesome? That and invisibility are the super powers I would like to have. Okay, so a quick question for my awesome reviewers, who is you favorite of my character, meaning not Derek (sorry!), Chloe, Simon, Tori, or Andrew? I'm just curios to what you guys think. So, hope you enjoyed the chapter and I will try to update with the guys' night chapter soon! PLEASE REVIEW!!**


	17. Guys' Night Out

**Okay guys, I'm sorry about the **_**really**_** long wait again. I had a hard time with this chapter and haven't had much time to type so it took a while. I'm really sorry again. Yes, I did change my name, why, I don't really know. Just felt like a change and who doesn't wish that some guy was real? Okay so first, I would like to give a big shout out to blugurlzJLJ, my fellow Lost fan and also someone who reads all Author's Notes, like this one, you are awesome and thanks for all your great reviews. I need to tell you guys this story from my math class. So in the classroom, there is this big window that everyone looks out of and then we get distracted by whatever is outside, such as dogs, preschoolers, random people on the sidewalk, cool cars, and even lawnmowers. Anyway, yesterday, my teacher was going over the lesson and then suddenly this one guy, Charlie plays him in a lot of my from real life things, sees something out the window. So he yells "Hey (Insert whatever last name you want here), your mom's on a leash!" We then of course turn around and see a really cute golden retriever being walked. Then the teacher sent the guy who yelled it to ISS (For those of you who don't know it's in school suspension), even though she was laughing hysterically just like the rest of us. So the guys leaves and he then mumbles something else that I can't remember but was also hysterical. So when the teacher calls the ISS room, she finds out that the really weird and awesome 7****th**** grade science teacher is in there and she let us do whatever last year so the guy next to me says "Now I want to go to ISS, Mrs. (insert name here) can you send me with him?" So yeah, we were laughing for like half of that class. Long story I know. So, did anyone else see A Nightmare on Elm Street? I loved it!! It was sooo good and actually funny, like the part when Freddy says "I was just petting him" and "Ooh, that's a little too fast for me." That was hysterical!! And Kyle Gallner was in it and he is really hot in my opinion and I love him!! He and his character in The Haunting in Connecticut were the inspirations for Kyle's name in this story! Hm… well, here's the chapter. I'm sorry it's not very good and I also apologize for spelling/grammar errors as well as anything that seems out of character. I sadly do not own Darkest Powers, no matter how awesome that would be.**

Derek's POV

"Hey!" Chloe said from the table. I had just said "bye" to her and was heading to the garage to get into the car. I turned around and she jumped at me, hugging me. I froze up for a second, wondering why the hell she was hugging me. She liked Simon, right? But I'd never seen her hug him like this. Not that I didn't enjoy her hugging me, actually I was ecstatic, but I couldn't figure out why she would be hugging me. _Okay brain, shut up and just hug her back_. I listened to my inner voice and hugged her back. "You don't get to leave with just a 'bye,'" she said before letting go of me and taking a step back. "Now go, unless you want to stay here with us girls." I shivered slightly.

"Alright, I'm leaving," I said, turning back around and heading for the garage. Then I saw Andrew walking into the TV room.

"There you are Derek," he said.

"Yeah," I said, slightly annoyed. "Right here. Do you need something?"

"We still need to magically disguise you," he said. I groaned, not looking forward to that at all. Then I heard Chloe come over to us.

"That sounds fun!" she said. "Can I watch?"

"Sure," Andrew said before turning back to me. "Okay, now you might feel a tingling sensation but this shouldn't hurt." Then he raised his hands and blue sparks started coming out of them and towards me. This really weird tingling started in my fingers and toes and then spread to my arm and legs and then to the rest of my body. I could feel my facial features changing and I was getting slightly shorter. Then it was all over and Andrew said, "Okay, done. Care to take a look at yourself?"

"I'm good," I said quickly, once again heading towards the garage. Then Chloe talked.

"Hey Andrew?" she said.

"Yes Chloe?"

"Can you change his voice at all, like make it falsetto or something?" _What?! _I wheeled around to face her, horrified.

"Yes!" Casey yelled from the doorway to the kitchen, where she had apparently been watching the whole thing. "That would be awesome! Do it Andrew, PLEASE!" _No! Please say no Andrew, please say no._

"Um, I don't think Derek would like that very much, right Derek?" Andrew said, turning to face me.

"Definitely not," I said, glaring at him "I'm fine like this."

"Aw," Chloe said, pouting slightly and making the cutest face ever. "Can you just do it for a few seconds?" Andrew looked at me, and even though Chloe's face was adorable, I shook my head enthusiastically.

"Come on Derek," he said. "That would be interesting."

"Yeah, you're the Science Guy," Chloe said. "Think of it as an experiment." I just stared at her and she glared at me. Actually_ glared._ I sighed and gave in, not that the glare was menacing or anything, just that she was really cute when she glared.

"Okay for ten seconds and that's it," I said.

"Yay!" she and Casey said at the same time. Then Chloe added, "Do it Andrew!" and Casey said, "And make him sound like Elmo!" _Oh God no, no, no, no. _

"Alright," Andrew said, sighing. I prayed that he wouldn't make me sound like that evil little red demon. He raised his arms. The blue sparks reappeared and then disappeared very quickly. "Okay Derek, say something."

"Can we go now?" I said, my voice _really_ high, like I had been inhaling helium, only higher still. Thankfully, it wasn't like Elmo's, but the voice still scared me. Everyone else though, thought it was hilarious and cracked up. I tried growling but it just sounded like a high pitched squeaking so I stopped. Then Tori came in.

"Uh, who is that?" she said, pointing at me.

"Derek," Chloe said, finally calming down.

"Whoa," Tori said, staring at me. "Good job Andrew."

"Ha, Tori thinks you're hot Derek," Casey said. "That's so cute!"

"No!" Tori said too quickly. Chloe laughed again.

"Can you change my voice back now?" I asked, getting really irritated. I realized then that speaking was a mistake. When Tori heard my voice, she continued staring then went into a laughing fit, falling on the ground and holding her sides. I held back the urge to growl.

"Andrew, you are awesome," she said between laughs.

"Please Andrew?" I said.

"Whoa, who's the dude with the weird voice?" Kyle said, coming into the room with Charlie in tow. Kyle's hair looked really weird and a purple barrette was randomly shoved into it. "And why is Tori freaking out?"

"Uh, what's with your hair?" Chloe said, pointing at it. "Did Julie do that?"

"No!" Kyle said loudly, acting insulted. "I will never let Julie touch my hair. I told Alex to put my hair in a fohawk. Now who's the guy?"

"That's Derek," Casey said. Kyle and Charlie both stared at me, looking like they were going to break out laughing at any second. Casey then said, "And he wears that barrette a lot, or another Power Puff Girls one. And fohawks are sort of his obsession."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, voice still really high and getting more and more annoyed by the second. "That's great and all, but can you change my voice back now Andrew?"

"Okay fine," Andrew said. He did the whole blue spark thing and then lowered his hands again. "It's back to normal."

"Finally," I said in my normal deep voice.

"Aww," Charlie said. "You should have left it like that! Andrew can you make my voice like that?"

"Me too! And can you teach me that spell?" Kyle asked. Andrew agreed and put a disguise spell on each of them, promising to teach it to Kyle at their next training session. They started saying random things, testing out their new voices and then ran to the garage to show James.

"Well now that that's over," I said. "Bye, have fun during your girl night."

"Shut up Derek," Casey and Chloe said at the same time. I gave a little laugh, knowing that they both weren't looking forward to this, and then left for the garage. Andrew followed me.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I didn't want to have to deal with wither of them if I refused."

"No prob," I said, still annoyed. I kept walking towards the garage, while Andrew kept trying to talk to me. I just gave a few grunts and some yes's and no's. I wasn't really in the mood for a conversation. Finally, we got to the garage where everyone else was hanging out around the one of the mini vans and the pickup truck. Charlie and Kyle were running around, singing some really random song, voices still high. Jake, Simon, and James were all sitting in the back of the pickup, laughing at them while Miles and Frank were talking by the front of the van.

"Um, is that you Derek?" Jake said. I nodded.

"Hey, they're here," James said, hopping off the truck and onto the ground. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah," Frank said. "Come on guys. James and someone else can come with me Andrew in the truck and everyone else goes with Miles in the van. And Kyle and Charlie get your voices changed back."

"Sure, make me drive the stupid car," Miles mumbled, catching the set of keys that Frank threw him. He trudged to the van.

"Why do we have to change our voices back?" Charlie asked. "It's fun." Frank glared at him and he sighed. "Fine, but I get to go with you and James. Andrew, change our voices back."

"Sure," Andrew said. He undid the disguise spell on Charlie and Kyle before going to ride shotgun in the truck. Charlie and James followed him with Frank close behind.

"Road trip!" Kyle said, running to ride shotgun.

"It's not really a road trip," Jake said, following him. Simon and I headed towards the car together.

"Nice… disguise. Are you going to be anti-social some more today?" Simon asked.

"I was planning on it."

"Come on! These guys are really cool."

"Simon, one of them has a barrette in their hair and just ran around in circles singing a completely random song. That's not even normal, much less cool."

"Well it's cool to me!" he said, running to the car door. He jerked it open and slid into the back seat next to Jake and Dan. I sighed and followed him, sitting in one of the middle seats next to Boone.

"Okay guys," Miles said. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah," Simon said. Miles started the car and followed Frank down the drive way.

"Hey, who wants to sing some road trip songs?" Kyle asked.

"I told you, it's not a road trip," Jake said, sighing.

"Whatever, so who wants to sing?"

"I will," Simon said. "How about found a peanut?" Everyone but me and Miles sang random road trip songs for about 20 minutes before we actually got out of the forest and into a town. At that point, I was really annoyed and yelled at them to shut up. They didn't, of course, and instead just started talking about fruit. Eventually, we got to this giant warehouse like building. It had a paint splattered sign that said _Widmore Gaming Center_.

"K guys," Miles said, pulling into a spot and turning off the car. "We're here."

"Yay!" Kyle and Simon said. We all got out of the car and met up with James, Charlie, Frank, and Kyle at the front door. Then we went inside. The inside of the building wasn't actually that big, probably because there were sections for every different activity they had. It was basically a long check in desk, with a couple of chairs and tables off to the side, and then six different rock climbing walls. On the walls not covered with fake rock, there were pictures of a bunch of things that this place supposedly had.

"Cool," Boone said, looking at the rock walls. "So do we have reservations?"

"Actually we do," Frank said. "I'll go check us in and you guys just hang out at the tables." We all agreed and headed towards the tables.

"So," Charlie said. "I call being team captain!"

"Me too!" James said. Everyone else, besides me, moaned and complained saying that they wanted to be captain. They eventually shut up and Charlie and James picked teams. Charlie's team was him, Boone, Miles, Jake, Andrew, and me while James' team was him, Dan, Frank, Kyle, and Simon.

Once Frank had us all checked in, some random guys came over to explain the rules of laser tag, which we were apparently playing first. Once everyone understood, we followed the guys into a room where all the laser tag stuff was. We all got our stuff, Charlie's team was blue and James' was red, then headed into the playing area. We got two minutes to scatter around play area before the game actually started. I wound up teaming up with Boone and we headed towards the back of the place.

Then the game began and things got, well really fun. I never played laser tag before was surprised at how good I was. Boone and I completely poned everyone we ran into, neither of us getting shot ever. When the game ended, only James was left on his team and Charlie, Miles, Boone, and I were all still alive on ours.

"You guys suck," Boone said when we started walking to the paintball section.

"Well just because you and Derek are awesome doesn't mean the rest of us suck. We just aren't as good as you," Kyle said, still pissed off about losing.

"Yeah sure," I said.

"Shut up Derek," Simon said. "But seriously, you guys were awesome."

"Aw, thanks," I said sarcastically. We reached the paintball part where the guys explained paintball before getting us into the protective stuff and helmets. They gave us our guns and ammo and we set out into a different arena. We weren't playing real paintball, basically it was just hit-as-many-people-as-you-can paintball. I teamed up with Boone again but we didn't do nearly as well. I got hit with seven paintballs, four of which were from Simon, and Boone got hit with ten. All together, our team got hit 37 times while James' got hit 48 times. James got really pissed then and started screaming at me and Boone specifically, because we snuck up on him like five times, hitting him every time.

"Okay," Boone said while we were getting all of our protection stuff off. "Now will you guys admit you suck?"

"Never!" Simon, James, Dan, and Kyle yelled.

"Then you're just going to half to keep crying," Miles said. "Because we are going to win anything else we do."

"No, no, no, no, no!!!" James yelled, practically having a temper tantrum. Apparently he was a sore loser. "We are going to win something! Dad, what else does this place have?"

"Um…" Frank said, thinking. "There's go carts, rock climbing, an obstacle course, and I think that's it."

"Go carts then!!" James said. The annoying guys that worked at the place took us to the go cart course and explained what we couldn't do while on it, bumping, cutting people off, etc. We all promptly ignored them.

Then they let us go pick our carts. I was forced to be in a pink one, to the amusement of Simon. They waved the stupid racing flag and then let us go. James immediately started bumping people to get into the lead then Miles started doing the same thing, and soon, everyone was bumping each other around the track. We were all laughing, yes including me, at both each other and the loud screams of the guys who worked here, telling us to stop bumping the other carts and just drive. We again ignored them. After like ten minutes, one of the guys was finally brave enough to step onto the track and wave the stupid flag, signaling us to pull back into the parking area. Not wanting to hit the guy, we followed his instructions and parked. Frank, Dan, and Charlie were in the first row, with Miles, Kyle, and a pissed of James in the second row, Simon, Boone, and me in the third row, and then Andrew and Jake in the fourth row.

"Ha!!" James said, looking at who finished when. "We win!!"

"Well you know what!" Charlie said, getting out of his cart. "We won two things!!"

"Shut up," James growled. He stood up and then turned to Frank. "We have to win something else! Can we do that obstacle course now?"

"Uh, I guess," Frank said, also getting up and checking his watch. "It's already 7, and I told Bernie that we would be at the hotel around 8, so we need to hurry."

"Bernie!!" James, Charlie, Kyle, and Jake all shouted.

"Why are they all screaming some random guy's name?" I whispered to Boone.

"I have no idea," he said, standing up and turning towards his brother. "Dan, why are they screaming some random guy's name?"

"Wait," Dan said. "I need to gloat first. I finished before you! I'm the better driver! Na na na na na na! Okay I'm done. What do you want?"

"Why were they all saying that guy's name?"

"Why don't you just ask them?"

"I don't need to ask them, you're the telepath, so tell me!"

"Fine, but only because I beat your ass so badly," Dan said. He spaced out for a second and then blinked and went back to normal. "They all think Bernie is awesome because he lets them do whatever they want and gets them whatever they want when they come to the hotel."

"Well that wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it would be," Boone said. "Come on Derek, we need to win the stupid obstacle course thing otherwise Charlie will be pissed." I stood up and followed him, Dan, and Simon out of the go cart section and into another big room. There were two huge inflatable thingys, obstacle courses I guess. James was already running around one of them, trying to figure out the best way to get through it.

"Okay," one of the worker guys said. "So basically what you have to do is make it through the course before the person on the opposite team. You guys will make a bracket so pairings are completely random. Who ever finishes first moves on to face the next person and so on and so on until you get to the final round where the winner will be determined. Any questions?"

"I have one," James said, raising his hand. He started speaking without being called on. "Is there any way we can cheat?"

"Several ways," another guy said. "But you just have to figure them out for yourselves. So, there's a bracket board over there and I guess we'll be going now." The worker guys left and then James raced over to the dry erase board that had tape on it to make a permanent bracket.

"So I go first," he said, holding up the marker and writing his name down on the top line.

"No," Miles said. "You'll rig the bracket. Let me do it, I'll just do it randomly. And then Dan can read my mind to see if I'm not."

"Fine," James said, throwing the marker at Miles who caught it. He did do a completely random bracket.

"Jake and Simon," Miles said. "You go first." They both went to the beginning of their own course while Andrew, who wasn't going to do the course at all, went to the back to see who finished first.

"Three, two, GO!!" James yelled. Simon and Jake both hesitated for a second, then Simon dove into the course. Jake blinked once and then dove into his. For about a minute, they both were moving rapidly through the course until Simon flew out the end of the course and collapsed on the ground.

"I won!" he panted.

"Way to rub it in," Jake said as he climbed out the end of his course.

"Okay so Simon wins that round," Miles said, marking Simon's name down on the next line. "Derek and Frank, you guys go next."

"Well this should be fun," Frank said, lining up in front of his course.

"Yeah," I said sarcastically, getting ready to run into the first tunnel.

"Three, two, GO!!" James said again. I didn't hesitate at all and sprang into the tunnel. It opened up into a little maze which I got through in three seconds, then went into a smaller tunnel that tilted upwards into another level. There were a bunch of poles that you had to go over or under. I vaulted over all of them and then dove down the slide at the end. It ended in another tunnel that had like five really sharp turns before a huge wall blocked the way. I found a rope on the right side of the wall and pulled myself up it. I jumped off the wall and then went through another tunnel. Suddenly, I was lying on my back on the ground, looking at the ceiling. Four seconds later, Frank came out of his course and collapsed.

"You're fast," he said between breaths.

"Thanks," I said, getting up and walking back towards everyone else. People continued facing each other until it got to the final two, James and Charlie. James was the one who beat me, but it was only by like .2 seconds for the record.

"James," Charlie said, getting ready to jump into the course. "I hope you're ready to lose."

"In your dreams, Charlie-boy," James said, also getting ready to go into the course.

"Okay guys," Frank said. "This is the last thing we're doing before we head to the hotel. So James, you better at least get us a tie."

"Thanks for the encouragement," James muttered.

"No problem," Frank said. "Okay so, ready-set-don't go!!" Charlie and James both went to dive into the course but then hesitated. Charlie fell face first on the ground while James ran straight into the side of the course.

"I hate you," Charlie said, rubbing his forehead and glaring at Frank.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," Frank said. They both got back into position. "Okay, for real this time. Ready-set-go!!" Charlie and James both went directly into the tunnel. You could sort of tell how far in the course they were by what part was moving and from what I could tell, they were pretty much neck and neck. It wasn't until Charlie burst out of the end less than a second before James that you could tell who won.

"Yes!!" Charlie yelled, getting up. "Yes, yes, yes!!!"

"No, no, no, no, no!!!" James screamed, banging his fists on the ground.

"We're number one!!!" Charlie yelled in a really disturbing accent while running around the room. Our team went to crowd around Charlie while James' team went to crowd around him, looking like they were going to cut his head off, or something else…

"Let's gloat," Charlie whispered. We all agreed and then me, Boone, and Miles hoisted Charlie up in the air, him still yelling "We're number one!" in that weird accent. James got up and just glared at us, along with the rest of his team, with the exception of Frank. He just stared at James, probably trying to figure out the best way to make him pay for losing.

"Maybe we should stop now," Jake whispered. "James and my dad might figure out something really good to do to us as revenge."

"Good point," Miles said. "Okay guys, stop gloating, we need to go anyway." We again all agreed and put Charlie down. The other team still looked pissed though.

"Um…" Andrew said. "We should probably go now."

"Agreed," Frank said, snapping out of his glaring-at-James mood. "Let's go." We all headed back to the cars, James' team still acting pissed. We were in the same cars as before and wound up sitting in the same spots.

"I hate you," Dan said, glaring at Boone.

"Don't hate me 'cause I'm awesome!!" Boone said, smiling back at his brother.

"I hate you too," Simon said to me.

"That's nice," I said, not even taking my gaze off the window.

"You guys should just let it go," Miles said. "It's going to be bad enough with Frank and James pissed off. They are the best at holding grudges. Right Jake?"

"Definitely," Jake said, flinching slightly. "And it never turns out well when you're the one they have the grudge on."

"Exactly," Kyle said. "And although I'm still pissed that we lost, we really need to let it go. The werewolves are going to make tonight hell. That is, unless we find a way to entertain them."

"And we better think fast," Miles said. "because we're here." He pulled the car into the parking lot of a Motel Six, with only one other car in the entire lot. Bernie's I guess. Once he parked, everyone got out of the car, Kyle and Jake running inside the motel, yelling for Bernie. Frank pulled in next to us and James and Charlie ran after Kyle and Jake.

"Well this should interesting," Dan said, moving towards the doors. We all followed him and then entered the motel as well. It looked exactly like all the other hotels I've been in, extremely boring and bland. The guys were all crowded around the reservation counter, which had a guys sitting behind it. Bernie looked about 60-something, with gray hair and a clean shaven face. He looked slightly overweight and maybe below average height.

"And who are these guys," Bernie said, leaning around James to look at me, Simon, Boone, and Dan.

"Oh," Simon said, always being the polite one. "Well I'm Simon, this is my brother Derek. Derek, say hi, it's polite."

"Hi," I said. Simon punched my shoulder.

"Sorry, he's anti-social."

"That's understandable," Bernie said. "With these guys it's sometimes better not to get involved." He then looked at Dan and Boone. "And you are…?"

"Sorry," Dan said. "I'm Dan and that's my brother Boone. We're Casey's second cousins."

"I thought you looked familiar," Bernie said. "And please tell me you guys are almost nothing like your cousin."

"Well," Boone said, smiling. "We're definitely like her, in some ways anyway. I for one, share her immaturity."

"Well at least not her hyperness," Bernie said. "That girl can't stand or stay silent for ten seconds."

"Hey!" James said. "That's my girlfriend you're talking about!"

"And you don't agree with me?"

"Well…" James said. "She's not _that_ bad."

"Thought so," Bernie said. He then saw something over our shoulders and smiled. "Andrew Carson."

"Hello Bernard," Andrew said from behind us. I turned around to see him smiling as well. "Good to see you again."

"I'll say," Bernie said, getting up and walking over to Andrew. They gave each other a small one arm hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I brought Derek, Simon, and their friends here," Andrew said. "Don't ask, it's a long story and I don't think anyone wants to hear it."

"Agreed," I said, knowing how long our little story would take to tell.

"Alright then," Bernie said. "Shall we eat?"

"Yes!" we all yelled. Bernie led the way to a small dining room, already set up with freshly cooked hot dogs, burgers, and other barbeque foods. "I wasn't planning on five other people coming, so there might not as much as you're used to."

"That's alright," Kyle said, grabbing two burgers, a hot dog, and a plate full of chips. "So long as Derek doesn't take quite as much as the other werewolf pig."

"Not nice," James said, already sitting down with three plates.

"Okay just everyone get some food," Andrew said. We did and then sat around the largest table.

"So you're a werewolf?" Bernie asked me from across the table.

"Yeah," I grunted.

"And what about you guys," he asked, turning his attention to Simon, Boone, and Dan. "I'm a sorcerer by the way."

"Me too," Simon said. "Although I shouldn't be counted as one. The Edison Group really messed up my powers. I can barely do a fog spell."

"Ah, so you were part of the Genesis Project?"

"Yeah, same with Derek."

"And the friends you came here with, are they part of the project as well?"

"Yes, Chloe is a necromancer and Tori is a witch. They both have freakishly powerful powers."

"Now that isn't nice," I said.

"Whoa," Simon said, turning to me. "Did you just stand up for someone? Usually you're the one insulting them." _Wait, why did I say that anyway? __Um… It's Chloe. You can't let people insult her.__ Yeah, but it was true. __Still._

'Didn't you say for me to try to be less anti-social?" I retorted quickly. "Being nice to people is an improvement for me."

"Yeah I guess," Simon said, turning back to Bernie. "But yeah, we were all part of the Genesis Project."

"Well that is very interesting," Bernie said before turning to look at Boone and Dan again. "So what are you guys?"

"Shaman," Boone said. "Just like just about everyone else in our family."

"Except for me," Dan said. "I'm an RP telepath."

"An RP huh? That is very rare. I only know of three others. And a telepath, that is a very nice power. Extremely useful as well."

"That it may be," Dan said. "So what are the powers of the other RPs you know?"

"Well, one can turn invisible at will and is telekinetic, another is a self proclaimed 'master of time and space,' and the last can see the future."

"That's Dez!" Charlie said. "My fellow European!"

"Great," Simon said. "Another person I don't know that everyone else does."

"You mean Nikki?" Jake asked. "Well, Dez is her adopted brother and then Walt, the master of time and space, is one of Dez's friends. They are together like all the time so when Nikki, Dez, and their parents come for the monthly meeting, Walt will probably come too."

"Well at least I get to meet them all in one fell swoop," Simon said. We then went back to eating, making small talk, and other people making really stupid jokes. It was then around 9:00 and we moved into a lounge.

"So…" Charlie said after everyone sat down. "Who wants to play spoons?"

"Spoons? Seriously Charlie?" James said.

"Hey, it's a fun game when there's a lot of people. So what does everyone say?"

"I guess," Kyle sighed. Everyone else agreed because we had nothing better to do. Bernie then left to get cards and spoons.

"Anyone want to have a thumb war?" Simon asked, obviously bored.

"Me!" Charlie said. They had several thumb wars before Bernie came back.

"Got them," he said, holding up a handful of spoons and a thing of cards. Suddenly, Andrew freaked out.

"Dan!" he shouted. "Get out of my head! I'm not going to say anything no matter what you do!"

"Well I'm sorry," Dan, who had apparently been talking in Andrew's head, said sarcastically. "Just telling you what I think is best."

"Well stop," Andrew said. When he noticed everyone was staring at him and Dan, he got really annoyed. "Don't even ask."

"Alright," Frank said. "Now can we play?" We began playing spoons. I didn't play well at all, only getting two cards. After about five rounds, Boone and Kyle left to go get ice cream.

"Hey guys!" someone yelled from behind me. We all jumped and turned around, seeing Casey there as an astral projection.

"God Case," Charlie said. "Are you trying to scare us half to death?"

"Didn't scare me," James said.

"Shut up," Charlie said.

"Anyway," Casey said. "Yes I was. Hey Bernie."

"Hi Casey," Bernie said.

"So…" James said. "How's the girl night going?"

"Um… A lot better than previous ones, but still not fun. Chloe seems to hate it just as much as I do, so we've been hanging out with each other, trying to have at least some fun."

"So what are you doing here?" Dan asked. "Come to talk to your favorite cousin?"

"No," Casey said, swinging her leg to kick him in the shin. Since she was only a projection, I expected her leg to go right through his. I think Dan did too. But, when Casey's foot hit his leg, it was knocked out from under him, like she really kicked him.

"OW!!" Dan yelled, falling on the ground and inspection his shin. "That hurt!!"

"Wait," Casey said. "That hurt me too." She walked over to James and pulled a bunch of his hair, jerking his head hard.

"God, damn it Casey!" he yelled, rubbing his head. "What the hell was- Wait, you're really here."

"Whoa," Casey said, dropping onto the couch next to James. "That is AWESOME!!!"

"So, that's not supposed to happen?" Simon asked.

"Definitely not," Dan said, glaring at Casey, probably still pissed about his leg. "I live in a house with two shamans and all they've ever done is astral project. In fact that's the practically the only thing they can do."

"Don't insult your brother," Casey said. "Boone is an awesome shaman. Speaking of Boone, where is he?"

"Getting ice cream," Charlie said.

"That's a good idea," Casey said. "Maybe I'll take some of yours when I get back."

"How do you know about my ice cream stash?!" Charlie yelled.

"Um, well…" Casey said, glancing at Jake. "I think I better go. Chloe's probably freaked if my body disappeared. Bye guys!" She then disappeared. We started another game of spoons and had just finished it when Boone and Kyle came back in.

"Finally," James said, running over to them and getting one of the tubs of ice cream. "Oh, by the way, your cousin just teleported."

"Awesome!!" Kyle yelled, jumping over the back of the couch.

"Yeah, real funny," Boone said, sitting on the couch with some ice cream.

"No really," Dan said. "She kicked me in the shin. I can show you the bruise if you want."

"You're serious?" Boone asked. He saw how serious everyone's face was and freaked out. "Oh my God!! How the hell did she do that?"

"No idea," I said.

"Why don't you just go ask her then?" Charlie asked.

"Good point," Boone said. He then leaned back into the couch and went limp.

"So she actually teleported?" Kyle asked.

"I guess so," Bernie said. "And that was really cool."

"Yeah," Miles said, looking at Boone. "Does anyone else want to draw on his face?" Dan, Kyle, and Charlie did and ran to get markers. Just ten seconds after they left the room though, Boone sat up.

"Well so much for that idea," he said.

"You didn't talk to her?" I asked.

"Um… No," he said. "She and Chloe were um… talking about… stuff and I didn't think that I should interrupt them." During the whole time, he was giving me a sort of weird look, which I just ignored.

"What were they talking about?" Simon asked.

"Just… stuff," Boone said quickly. "They probably would be pissed if they knew I heard. And probably kill me if I told."

"Aww!" James said. "Now I really want to know!"

"Well too bad," Boone said.

"Damn, he's back," Miles said, coming back into room.

"Aww," Charlie whined. "Boone, can we draw on your face?"

"No."

"You suck."

"Whoa," Dan said, looking at Boone. "Bad timing bro." I guess he had read his mind.

"Tell me about it," Boone said. "I take it you already knew though."

"Um… yeah, sort of."

"Okay, can we please stop talking about stuff I don't understand?" Kyle asked.

"I agree," James said. "Especially when I really want to know but certain people won't tell me!"

"Don't be such a whiner," Boone said. "So can we do something other than spoons?"

"Yeah, it's getting boring," Jake said. "Is there some other card game?"

"How about go fish?!" Kyle yelled.

"Way to be immature Kyle," Charlie said, patting him on the back. "I'm proud of you. Let's play go fish." We played go fish for like an hour. It got pretty intense during the last few minutes of the last game. James and Boone kept thinking that the other was lying and actually attacked each other at one point. We dragged them off of each other and then stopped playing after that.

"So bored!" Jake whined after oh… 15 seconds.

"Me too," James whined, sounding a lot like his little brother. He then suddenly perked up. "Who wasn't to have an arm wrestling tournament?"

"No!" Kyle yelled. "You and Frank beat everyone last time. Unfair werewolf advantage!"

"So!" James said. "We got more people now, maybe you can actually beat someone."

"Shut up, I beat plenty of you!" Kyle yelled.

"Uh, no you didn't," Charlie said. "All of the guys beat you plus Casey."

"Well… so… I don't care!!"

"Then let's arm wrestle," Boone said. "I bet I can beat you all!" Miles made another random bracket, nothing to do with the former teams, pitting Charlie and Simon against each other first.

"Why am I always first?" Simon asked as everyone cleared off the table. Charlie and Simon then went to opposite sides of it and stood on their knees.

"You're gonna fail," Kyle said to Charlie.

"Shut up wimpy," James said. Simon and Charlie grabbed each other's hands. "Okay, ready-set-go." Right from the start, Charlie was beating Simon, but by only a little. After about ten seconds, I could see that Simon was loosing his strength and Charlie was definitely going to win. I was right. Charlie won after only 20 seconds.

"Sorry," I said to Simon as he sat next to me.

"Not your fault," he said. "But thanks." We watched Kyle being beat really bad by Dan, then Frank beat Jake, and Boone beat Bernie before I was up to face Miles. I won pretty easily after only 10 seconds. Then James faced Andrew and also won.

"Second round!" Charlie said happily. "Who am I against?"

"Dan," Miles said, looking at the bracket.

"Cool," Charlie said. "You're going down."

"Yeah sure," Dan said, taking his spot at the table. As soon as the match started, Dan bent Charlie's arm about halfway to the table.

"Ah!" Charlie said as he tried to bring his arm back up. He failed though and kept screaming at his arm to move all the way until Dan forced it to the table. Then Charlie just stared at Dan. "You're strong!"

"Yeah," Dan said. "That's what doing constant yard work does for you."

"Yup," Boone said. "That's why I said I can beat you all, because I can."

"We'll just see about that," James said. "Who's next?" It was Frank and Boone. At first, they looked evenly matched. Then Boone jerked his arm and Frank's went down a couple of inches.

"Come on Dad!" James said. "Beat him, beat him!"

"I'm… trying," Frank said, obviously straining to get his arm up. But, with another jerk of his arm, Boone brought it down all the way.

"I told you!" Boone said. "I'm gonna win!"

"Shut up," James said. "So I'm against Derek right?" He was and we got into position.

"Well this should be interesting," Charlie said. "Anyone want to bet? My money's on Derek."

"You don't have any money," Miles said.

"I have Monopoly money," Charlie said. "So anyone else want to bet? Anyone? Anyone?" When no one answered, he dropped his head. "Damn, way to ruin my fun guys. Proceed."

"Okay," James said. "Three-two-one- go!" We both tried to bring the other's hand down and well, it was hard. We were almost evenly matched, with one of us moving the other's arm only a little at a time. After like two minutes, I finally got the upper hand and began lowering his arm towards the table.

"No!" James yelled as he tried to regain some ground. "No, no, no, no, no." He said the last no when I finally got his arm to the table. He then looked at me. "You suck."

"Thanks," I said, getting up.

"Alright," Miles said. "We're down to the final three, Dan, Boone, and Derek. You three pick a number between 1 and 20." Boone said 4, Dan said 8, and I said 15. "Okay, well it was 10, so Derek and Dan were the closest to you guys go against each other first." We took our positions and then started. Dan was almost as strong James, but I still won.

"Beat him bro," Dan said to Boone as he knelt down across the table from me. We grabbed hands and then started the match. Boone was even stronger than Dan, maybe even more than James. He began moving my arm towards the table after only 5 seconds. It took about a minute for it to go all the way down though.

"I told you!!" Boone said, jumping up and down. "I beat you all, I beat you all!!"

"Shut up," James said. "And face me, I bet you wont beat me." Boone did beat him though, and James got really mad. He decided to go against everyone else, winning as many matches as he could. Then Everyone decided that they also wanted to face everyone else and so we were still arm wrestling like an hour later.

"I hate all of you!" Kyle yelled after everyone had faced everyone else. He had lost to everyone.

"Shut up Kyle!" Charlie yelled. "So… what do you guys want to do now?"

"Um…" Simon said. "Are there water balloons here?"

"Uh, Bernie?" Jake asked.

"I think we might have some," Bernie said. "I remember confiscating them from some kids a while ago. Somewhere in the front desk."

"Cool," Simon said."I'll go look." He and Charlie went to look for water balloons. They came back with three bags of them. "So who wants to have a water balloon fight?" We all agreed and threw water balloons at each other for over two hours. Then we went back to the lounge, soaking wet. Bernie made us take off our shirts so we wouldn't completely ruin the couch.

"Bored again!" Jake whined, after 20 seconds this time. All we did was turn on Blades of Glory. We watched it until 2 then, being the immature guys they are, Charlie and James wanted to play hide and go seek.

"What is your guys' obsession with that game?" I asked.

"It's fun, that's our obsession!" Kyle yelled.

"Okay sorry," I said, not wanting to have a repeat of the Charlotte-Arthur incident. "Let's play the stupid game."

"Yay!" Charlie cried. He turned to Bernie. "Can we have master key cards?"

"Yeah," Bernie said. "Front desk, right hand side, second drawer from the top."

"Thanks Bernie," James said, getting off the couch and heading towards the lobby. Everyone besides Frank, Bernie, and Andrew followed him. When I got to the lobby, James had already found the master cards and was handing them out to everyone.

"Okay," Charlie said. "Let's make up rules! Um… First, no going in the women's toilet **(He's British remember)**, none of us want to go in there. No roof or some other spot that only certain people could get to. And… you have to stay inside the building. Anything else?" No one said anything. "Okay, then when everyone is found head back here and wait for everyone else. Kyle, count first."

"Why me?" Kyle whined.

"Because you're annoying," James said. "So count to 300. That should be plenty of time."

"Fine. 1-2-3…" We all ran out of the lobby and scattered around the hotel. I went to the second floor and slipped into room number 316. I went to the huge wardrobe and went inside of it. I heard nothing for like 45 minutes, then I could hear Kyle coming down the hall searching each room thoroughly. He finally got to my room and went straight to the wardrobe where I was hiding.

"Hi Derek!" he said happily as he saw me inside.

"Hi," I said, stepping out and already heading back towards the lobby. When I got there, I discovered that everyone besides Dan, Miles, and Jake had been found.

"Where were you?" Simon asked as I sat down on the couch next to him.

"Closet in some random room, you?"

"Some house keeping room or something. I was in a pile of towels."

"Exciting."

"Ooh," Casey's voice said. I looked up to see her glancing around the room. Her gaze eventually settled on James' still bare chest. "Whatever you guys are doing, I like it."

"Hi Case," James said.

"Hello Jimmy!"

"Shut up," James growled.

"She calls you Jimmy?" Boone asked, laughing slightly. "That's _so_ cute."

"Don't make me hurt you," James growled.

"James!" Casey yelled. "You are not allowed to threaten my cousin!"

"Alright sorry," James said annoyed.

"Thank you," Boone said. "And I'm pretty sure I can take you. I did beat you _all _in the arm wrestling thing."

"You did?" Casey asked. When Boone nodded, her face brightened up. "Finally! Someone knocked James off his I'm-so-tough pedestal. Thank you Boone! And good job beating everyone."

"Thank you Casey," he said. "So, I hear you teleported earlier."

"Oh yeah!" Casey screamed. "I did and it was awesome! And speaking of that, that's not normal right?"

"No I don't believe it is."

"Crap. So then I guess I'll have to call my dad in the morning. Wait, it is morning, so… this afternoon then! So what are you guys doing exactly?"

"Playing hide and go seek," Charlie said.

"Aw luckys! I love playing in the hotel! And uh, why exactly are you all shirtless?"

"We had a water balloon fight!" Simon said happily. "My idea!"

"You guys are having so much more fun than we are!" she whined. "All we've done since I last came to see you guys was eat cupcakes and ice cream, play spoons, and then we've just been talking for like three hours!"

"What could you possibly talk about for three hours?" I asked.

"Exactly! We said the same things like three times! Julie made me tell the doughnut story four times!"

"Haha, that is hilarious!" James said.

"It's not even that funny anymore!" Casey yelled.

"What doughnut story?" Simon asked, confused.

"Well, basically my dad through some stale doughnut holes at some slow Canadians' car."

"Ha, that is funny," Simon said. "How did they react?"

"I'm not quite sure. My dad never told me. Well, anyway, how are you guys doing?" We told her what we had been doing and then she got really mad and jealous and left. It was another 20 minutes before everyone else was found and we started another round, with Miles searching. We played hide and go seek around four more times until I found Jake passed out in the middle of a hallway. I checked the time and saw that it was 4:30. Poor kid must have been too tired to stay awake. I picked him up and brought him back to the lobby. On my way there, James ran into me.

"What happened?!" he yelled, going into protective mode and running over to me and his brother.

"I found him passed out in the hall, probably fell asleep," I said, passing Jake over to James.

"Uhg, Dad is going to be pissed," he muttered, heading back to the lobby with me following. We passed Kyle who had also fallen asleep but James told me not to bring him back so we left him.

"Apparently people are really tired," James said once we got back to the lobby. Everyone looked at the sleeping Jake and agreed that we should stop playing. Then they broke out the caffeine. After 20 minutes and 4 sodas, almost everyone was hyper.

"Ahh!!!" Charlie yelled as he ran around the room, flapping his arm like a chicken. "I love peanut butter!" James and Dan joined him and they then began screaming "I need a calculator," in an Australian Accent. The rest of us slowly backed out of the room away from the crazies. We got to the lounge and discovered that the "responsible" adults had gone to bed a while ago, probably thinking that 5:00 was too early to still be awake.

"Now I'm stuck with you guys," Miles whined, flopping down on the couch.

"Well," Boone said. "Would you rather have been talking about stupid stuff like politics?"

"Never mind, I like you guys better."

"Aw thanks," Simon said.

"Guys!" James yelled, running into the room. "Hey guys! Who wants to play tag?" Only Simon did.

"Is everyone here immature?" Boone asked.

"You guys haven't even seen the worst of it," Miles said.

"Well that's great," I said. The three of us just watched TV and ate for 15 minutes until Dan and James came in with a box.

"Who wants to play Hullabaloo?" James asked happily, holding up the box. There were some little kids doing random things on it.

"Where's Simon?" I asked.

"Passed out in the hotel somewhere," Dan said.

"Great," I said, thinking about going to get him. I decided not to and instead got up to get some more Pepsi.

"Derek!" Boone yelled while I was still in the kitchen. I ran back in to see that they had scattered different colored pads all around the room.

"What?"

"You are playing with us," Dan said. "And don't refuse, I will make you do it with my mind!"

"Uhg," I sighed. "Fine. How do you play?" _Does caffeine make me agreeing? I should stop drinking that stuff_.

"You listen to the little machine and then follow its directions," James said, motioning towards a boxy thing.

"Simple," I said.

"Yup, now get on a purple character pad," Dan said. We all did, with James and Boone sharing one, and then Miles started the machine. It said a little introduction and told you how to play before saying, "Slither to an instrument." I looked at the pads, seeing four of them had instruments on them and started walking towards the closest one.

"Hey!" James yelled. "You have to slither." To prove his point, he slithered to the trumpet pad. Everyone else did so I was forced to. Then the machine told us to go to a green pad by flying like an airplane. Luckily I was already on one.

"Do I even want to know where you found this game?" I asked.

"Casey and her sisters played it and made us play it a few months ago," Dan said.

"Then when she got here," James said. "She made me and Jake play it with her."

"You let her boss you around like that?"

"Well," James said. "I kind of have to listen to her."

"And she and her sisters ganged up on us," Boone said.

"Well that's kind of sad." We kept playing and after like five rounds, Casey astral projected to us.

"Oh my God!" she yelled. "You guys are playing Hullabaloo!"

"Yes," Dan said, performing the next task the machine asked for.

"So, where is everyone else?"

"Passed out in random places throughout the hotel."

"Awesome! We just crashed in my room. And I'm not tired at all!" We talked for like five minutes before Casey left again.

"Okay then," Miles said. "I hate to say this guys, but we probably should go to bed too."

"Aww!" we all whined. We agreed though, but not before we pulled a few sleeping pranks on the people who had fallen asleep earlier. We then all went into some random suite and went to bed. It took me several minutes to shake off the caffeine's effect before I could actually fall asleep.

**Okay, boring? SOOO long I know, and I'm sorry about that. I have no idea what guys do at sleepovers, and I really don't want to know, so I just made up some stuff. All things that I would love to do! Lucky guys, they get to do fun stuff. So, who liked it? Anyone? Please? Okay, so who noticed the hidden Lost references? If you did, tell me in a review and you get a prize, which I will decide on later. And when the guys went around screaming "I need a calculator" in an Australian accent, some guys actually do that in my gym class. Why, I have no idea, but it was started by the same guy who said the dog thing. Okay, some random facts, there is a Lost board game that I now really want, on Amazon, it has advertisements for action figures and there is a Ben 10 alien, and Worst Case Scenario is a crappy show, despite the fact the Bear Grylls rules. So, I will try to update as soon as possible as soon as I get seven reviews. So… Bye!**


	18. Food Fight!

**Okay people I'm am really really really really really sorry about not updating in almost a month. I actually have been busy with stuff though, not just messing around. I've had a ton of finish-up-the-year work for school that has taken me forever to do. And I had to read Blood Promise before Spirit Bound came out, okay maybe I didn't have to but I wanted to. Then I read Spirit Bound, which was incredible and if anyone else read it, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PM to talk about it! Then LOST ended and I was pretty depressed about The End, which I'm actually watching right now. Okay, I am on such a huge a roller coaster high, from Wednesday! Our grade went to Six Flags so I spent a whole day running around with two of my friends and riding awesome roller coasters. It was AWESOME! Okay, I'll get to the chapter now! Please ignore any spelling/grammar errors and out of characterness. Don't own Darkest Powers as always.**

Chloe's POV

Loud giggling woke me up. I opened my eyes and sat up slowly, seeing Tori sitting with Julie, both of them giggling like freaks.

"What is so funny that you guys had to wake me up?" I asked groggily.

"Julie was telling me about some stuff that Kyle has done," Tori said loudly. I looked around the room and saw that we were the only ones up.

"You guys should be quieter," I said. "Unless you want some really pissed of people after you."

"Good point," Julie said. "Charlotte is scary when she's mad."

"Yeah, well Tori's not so good at being quiet," I said, smiling.

"Hey!" Tori yelled.

"See?" Julie laughed.

"Wait," Tori said suddenly. "You actually said something mean! I guess my lessons paid off."

"Shut up Tori."

"No," she said. "In fact, how about we talk about guys. Julie, what one do you like?"

"I… don't like any of them."

"Yeah sure. Seriously, you seem like the kind of girl who always has a crush. So who is it?"

"Way to be stereotypical Tori," I said.

"Well she's right," Julie said. She looked at the ground. "I really like Kyle."

"Kyle?" Tori asked, laughing a little. "Seriously? What's so great about him?"

"He's so sweet! And funny and so cute!"

"Sure… I personally like Charlie. Accents are just so gorgeous. Plus he really is hilarious! What about you Chloe?" I froze for a second, not wanting to give away that I liked/possibly loved Derek.

"A-are you s-seriously asking me that Tori?" I asked as calmly as possible.

"Come on Chloe!" Tori whispered-yelled. "There are 1-2… 9 teenage guys in this house, you have to like at least one of them!"

"Not everyone is guy obsessed Tori," I said. "A-and I d-don't like any o-of t-them."

"You know, your stutter is the best lie detector ever. So what one is he?"

"U-u-uh-h-h-h…" I said, stalling while trying to think of some sort of answer. Luckily, Casey saved me.

"Why are you guys being so loud?" she asked sleepily, sounding annoyed.

"I told you," I said, glancing at Tori. She saw me and stuck her tongue out.

"Well that is immature even to me," Casey said, sitting up from her spot on the floor and moving towards us. "And your conversation is very interesting, but I think that we should continue it downstairs while eating. Alex gets pissed if people wake her up."

"Fine," Tori sighed. We got up and quietly left Casey's room. Once we were out, I hung back with Casey.

"Thanks for saving me," I whispered.

"No prob," she said. "I didn't think Tori would really forget about you liking Derek if you told her. And it didn't seem like you would last much longer."

"Yeah I was having a hard time."

"If they ask you again, just say Charlie. Tori will accept it since she likes him too. Unless of course you want to tell them you like Derek, that's fine with me."

"No! Definitely not. Tori hates him and would never let it go."

"Exactly, but I don't think she hates him. She just tries to by being mean to him but she really loves him."

"I think love is a strong word for it."

"Agreed," Casey said, laughing. We got to the TV room to see Claire, Libby, and Anna watching some sitcom.

"There you are," Anna said, turning around to face us. "You know it's 11:30. The guys will be back in like 30 minutes."

"Yay!" Julie yelled.

"Not when they eat all your doughnuts," Libby said, motioning towards several white boxes on the kitchen table.

"Yummy!" Casey yelled, running to the table. By the time I got there, she had already stuffed half of a doughnut into her mouth.

"You're as much as a pig as the guys," I told her as I sat down and grabbed a doughnut.

"Thank you," she said through a mouthful of food.

"So…" Tori said, sliding into a chair to face Casey. "Continuing our conversation from earlier, how did you wind up with James?"

"Uh…" Casey said, mouth still full. "Well it's kind of a long story."

"Then tell it," Tori said, clearly interested.

"Okay, fine." She then began to tell about how she got together with James which didn't find very interesting. I still listened though, hoping there might be some help for me to convince myself to tell Derek I liked him in the story. No such luck. By the time Casey finished her story, the doughnuts were all gone and neither Charlotte or Alex had woken up. Then the guys came home.

"Hey," Boone said as he walked into the kitchen, heading straight for the pantry.

"Hey?" Casey asked, getting up and following him. "That's all I get?"

"Fine," Boone said, turning around to face her. "Hi Casey, how are you? There, is that better?"

"No," Casey said, going over to hug him. "A hug is better."

"Aww," Julie said. "That's so sweet!"

"Shut up Julie," Casey and Boone yelled at the same time. They let go of each other and Boone went back to the pantry.

"Oh, Charlie look!" James said from the doorway. "It's the pajama parade!"

"Jimmy!" Casey yelled, running over to him and then jumping at him and hugging him. "I hate you."

"Aww!" James said sarcastically, but still hugging her. "I hate you too."

"Hey!" Casey said, hitting his arm. "I have a reason to hate you. You got to do all those fun things while I was stuck here."

"Well you just hit me," James said letting go of her. "That is violence!"

"Ahh," Charlie said, stepping into the room. "Reunions are so amusing."

"You don't have to hear their thoughts," Dan muttered as he went to the fridge.

"Neither do you," Casey said, turning to Dan. "You can turn off your telepathy stuff."

"Yeah but sometimes thoughts just randomly pop out at me," Dan said. "And they aren't always meaningless little things."

"Hey Dan," James said. Dan looked over at him. "Shut the hell up."

"Thank you James," Casey said, going back over to him and kissing him.

"Uhg," Miles said as he came into the kitchen. "How many times do I have to tell you guys to get a room?"

"815," Casey said happily.

"Seriously though," Miles said, lowering his voice. "You know Claire hates you guys making out in public."

"We never made out in _public_," James said. "So Mom has nothing to worry about."

"Shut up James," Casey said, elbowing him in the ribs before coming back to the table to sit next to me.

"Nice jammies by the way," Boone said, sitting down on the opposite side of Casey. Casey looked down at her mismatched pajamas and the back at Boone.

"Thank you," she said. "Now compliment everyone else as well, it's polite."

"Okay then," Boone said. He then complimented everyone else's choice in pajamas.

"Why is everyone in here?" Simon asked as he came into the kitchen and sat on the counter.

"It's the kitchen Simon," I said. "It's like the place where people spend the most time."

"And the place where most accidents happen," Derek said as he came into the room. He looked right at me as he came in and I stared back. After a couple of seconds, Casey kicked my leg under the table. I snapped out of my staring at Derek trance and looked at Casey, giving a nod of thanks. She nodded back before turning to James across the table.

"So what did you do after playing Hullaballoo?" she asked.

"What the hell is Hullaballoo?" Tori asked.

"A little kid game that is really fun," James said. "And nothing, we went to bed."

"That's boring," Casey said, frowning. "Although we did the same thing."

"So don't make fun of us," Boone said. "So guess what I found out."

"What?"

"Your boyfriend is pretty cool."

"And so are your cousins," James said. "Almost as cool as me and just about as immature."

"Aww! You guys bonded," Julie said sarcastically. "No one cares."

"I do!" Casey said, smiling like an idiot. "So can you guys tell my dad how awesome he is? That would be so nice." Casey then went on to beg Boone and Dan to somehow convince her dad the James was a cool guy. They talked about it for like ten minutes while Charlotte and Alex finally came down and I talked to Julie and Tori and we somehow wound up talking about Vampire Academy. Tori and I both agreed that Adrian was cooler while Julie kept arguing that Dimitri was. Suddenly, Casey screamed and jumped up.

"What?" James yelled, instantly running to her side.

"I never called my dad about the teleporting thing!" Casey yelled. She began to run out of the room but then stopped and turned back to us. "By the way, Adrian then Christian then Mason are cooler that Dimitri. He's a freak!" Julie yelled and Casey ran upstairs laughing her head off, with James right behind her.

"So…" Charlie said. "What should we do?"

"We could try to act like Derek all day," Simon suggested. "That was my favorite game in 5th grade."

"That's mean," I said, glancing at Derek. He saw me and actually smiled.

"Thanks Chloe," he said, meeting my gaze. I stared at him for like five seconds before he glanced away.

"Yeah I'm not playing act like Derek," Tori said. "I would be scarred for life."

"Come on Tori," I said. "You could be a little nicer."

"Nice isn't fun though," Tori muttered.

"Okay can we get back to figuring something to do?" Derek asked. "Preferably not mimicking me."

"Food fight!" Charlie yelled, grabbing Boone's bag of chips and jumping onto the table.

"Not downstairs you don't!" Claire said. "Go in someone's room or outside."

"Aww," Charlie said, pouting, dropping his head and throwing the chips back at Boone. They flew everywhere, most of them on Tori and Julie, who both screamed and glared at Charlie.

"Well that was fun!" Simon said happily. "Can we have a food fight?"

"Just not downstairs," Claire yelled again.

"So yes?" I asked. We all said yes.

"And we will be using what to throw at each other?" Derek asked.

"Pudding!" Kyle yelled.

"That has too much potential staining power," Tori said. "And I don't want any of my clothes stained."

"Then just use some of our random crappy clothes," Alex said. "And I like the idea of pudding. And Jell-O perhaps?"

"YES!" Charlie yelled. "Now let's start making the ammo!" Just as we all stood up, Casey ran into the room with James behind her.

"Boooone!" she cried, handing her phone to him. "My dad wants to talk to you."

"Um, okay," Boone said, taking the phone and holding it to his ear. "Uh… Hi Mike." I could hear Casey's dad yelling very loudly. "Oh, uh. Yeah I knew about that. …. Yes he is. Mike come on, he's not- Yeah I'll shut up." We all started laughing except James and Casey. Then Dan cracked up even more.

"Casey you shouldn't have told him now," Dan said.

"Told who what?" Julie asked.

"I um…" Casey began. "It was James' idea!"

"Was not!" James yelled. "You asked me about it first!"

"Shut up and answer the question!" Charlie screamed. Everyone stared at him. "What? I just want to know."

"I told my dad that I'm James' unofficial mate," Casey said. "And he didn't take it well."

"I'll say," Boone muttered. "He's really pissed. Yes you Mike. Why don't you just talk to him? Okay fine." He passed the phone to Dan. "He wants to talk to you."

"Great," Dan muttered. "Mike why can't you just astral project here? It would be a lot easier…. Yeah fine. So what do you want?... As far as I can tell no. That's why she says unofficial."

"Oh God Dad," Casey muttered. "Sorry Dan." He mouthed "thanks" and then went back to talking to her dad.

"So can we make the pudding now?" Charlie whined.

"Pudding?" James yelled. "Why are we making pudding?"

"Food fight!" Kyle yelled.

"Really?" he yelled. When people nodded he started jumping up and down. "Yes! I have been waiting for this for months! What are we using as ammo?"

"Pudding and Jell-O," I said.

"Awesome."

"So can we actually make it now?" Charlie whined.

"Yeah whatever," Kyle said. We then all went to the pantry and found the pudding and Jell-O. I grabbed two boxes of chocolate pudding before heading to find some bowls. Derek caught up with me holding three boxes of pudding and one of Jell-O.

"You know you have to make all of those," I told him.

"Yeah I know," he said, pulling out three bowls and handing me one.

"And you don't plan on eating any of them?"

"Maybe…"

"Figures," I said, pulling out some milk and going to find a whisk and measuring cups. Derek already had. "How is it that you know where everything is?"

"Lucky guesses," he said, setting the supplies down on the island. I walked up next to him and started emptying my pudding boxes into my bowl while trying to think of something to say. Before I could think of anything, Derek said, "So how was last night?"

"Oh, um… Fine I guess. Actually it wasn't bad, I hung out with Casey pretty much the whole night."

"Yeah that sounds really fun," Derek said sarcastically.

"Shut up she's not that bad. Slightly hyper yes, but not really annoying or anything. That title would be left for James, Charlie, and Kyle I think."

"Yeah you're definitely right about that," Derek said. "You should have seen them last night, it was kind of scary that teenage guys would do all that stuff. And James is a really sore loser."

"What did he lose?"

"The other team kept beating me- I mean us, in everything" James said, glaring at Charlie.

"Yeah that," Derek said.

"Hey you shut up," James said. "You and Boone did as much damage to us as our entire team did to you."

"Really?" I asked, turning to Derek.

"Uh, I guess," Derek said. "Boone and I were a pretty good team."

"Yeah we were!" Boone said, holding up his hand to give Derek a high five, which Derek reluctantly returned.

"And James is a really sore loser," Casey said. "Try playing board games with him. Most of the time when he's losing he flips out and throws the board across the room! You've dented several walls that way haven't you Jimmy?"

"Shut up Casey," James muttered. Casey just laughed and started talking about random things while I started mixing my pudding and kept talking to Derek. As I did, I realized that I actually did love him. I actually couldn't take my eyes off of him the entire time and he had to tell me to stop mixing the pudding because I was so distracted. We then put all the bowls of stuff in the fridge to solidify a little and then went to the couch. Claire, Libby, and Anna were now watching Cash Cab.

"Great," Simon said. "Another show that Derek will know all the answers to with his head full of useless knowledge."

"Istanbul," Derek said randomly. I looked up at him with a confused look on my face. "It's the answer to the question they just asked."

"You're right Simon," Charlie said. "Are you going to say all the answers, 'cause that would be annoying?"

"Really it would annoy you?" Casey said happily. "Great then I'll do that too! Everyone yell out whatever they think is the answer!" We watched Cash Cab and yelled out random answers for like fifteen minutes and four cab rides before Dan came walking into the room.

"You're dad would not shut up!" he yelled, handing Casey her phone.

"And what did he ask you?"Casey asked, turning around to face Dan.

"A ton of things and it was really annoying. Oh, and you guys aren't allowed to be alone in a room together, ever."

"That sucks," James said. Then he smiled evilly. "For you guys."

"James!" Casey yelled, slapping his knee.

"Yeah God," Boone said. "I don't really want to think about you guys making out any more than I did earlier. So shut up, it makes me feel like a pervert."

"I thought I was the pervert!" Charlotte cried.

"That was only one day like a year ago Char," Julie said. "And it was not funny."

"I thought it was!" Casey and Alex yelled at the same time.

"Well I think I'm going upstairs," Claire said suddenly. "You guys really like to talk about odd things don't you?"

"They're only odd because you're old," James said. When Claire glared at him, he looked quickly down at the ground. "Sorry Mom."

"You better be," Claire said before leaving the room with Libby right behind her.

"The Butterfly Effect," Derek said randomly again.

"What the hell Derek!" Charlie yelled. "Stop it." Derek looked down at me grinning evilly.

"Should I?" he asked with an evil tone.

"No," I said quickly, looking up at him. Our eyes met again and I got that weird feeling again although it was like times 100. Casey kicked my leg after a few seconds and I glanced away from Derek and towards her. I tried to make a thank you face but it turned out weird and Casey just stared at me.

"A bottle of wine," Derek said, answering another question. "Belonged to Thomas Jefferson."

"Shut up!" Charlie yelled again.

"Why are people shutting up?" Miles asked as he came into the room and sat by Anna.

"Charlie is getting very annoyed today for some reason," Alex said.

"Although I find it very entertaining," Anna said. "I don't know why Claire finds you guys so annoying."

"Well she finds me annoying too," Miles said. "That I don't get that at _all_."

"Less than one," Derek said, still watching Cash Cab.

"SHUT UP DEREK!" Charlie yelled, jumping up and running out of the room.

"What's his problem?" Derek asked. I started laughing.

"Charlie has serious issues," Julie said. "In fact, in about two minutes he'll probably come running in here ranting about what a horrible country America is and how he hates all Americans."

"Oh yeah I remember when he did that!" Casey yelled before collapsing in a fit of laughter. Then a thought occurred to me.

"Hey Casey?" I asked

"Y-y-yeah?" she answered, recovering from her laughing fit.

"What did your dad say about the teleporting thing?"

"Oh yeah!" Casey yelled. "I completely forgot. Apparently, I really was part of one of the Edison Group's experiments, although Dad said that he didn't put me in it. What that means, I have no idea, and he wouldn't say anymore. He and Boone and Dan's dad got me out of it pretty quickly though, so he didn't think that there was enough time for anything to be done to me, but apparently he was wrong."

"Wait what?" Miles said. "Where the hell did this come from?"

"What you guys actually were stupid enough to think teleporting was just some awesome extra power I got from nothing in particular?" Casey asked. "That's really sad."

"Okay I'm calling Mike," Miles said, getting up. "I want to know why he didn't tell me. Now where's Frank?"

"Dad'll be pissed," Casey said. "He's already pissed about James and would probably be even more pissed if he talks to James' dad. Then he'll probably hang up on you."

"Hm… Good point," Miles said. "But he won't mind about Anna talking to him. He doesn't even know her. Want to do an interrogation Ann?"

"Yes!" she said, jumping up and following Miles out of the room.

"Aww that's so cute," Casey said.

"Why do you always have to be so vague?" Simon asked. "What's so cute?"

"Miles loves Anna," Julie said. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Not really," Tori said.

"That's because you don't really know him," Kyle said. "'Cause I can see it perfectly. Although I can't tell if Anna likes him. She's hard to read."

"Agreed," Casey said.

"Crime scene investigation," Derek said, answering yet _another_ question. Now it really was getting annoying. He seemed to see my annoyance and said, "Sorry, I'll stop."

"Thank you," I said, glancing over at him. He was already staring at me and I stared back until Casey kicked me _again_. _I really need to stop doing this. __Shut up, you don't need to stop, you just need to tell him that you love him.__ I am so-_

"Chloe I need to show you something!" Casey said, jumping off the couch and dragging me with her.

"Um, where are we going?" I asked, confused.

"You'll see," she said mysteriously, pulling me out of the room. I glanced back at the couch where Derek was giving me a sympathetic look. Then Casey led me into the reading room.

"Now will you tell me?"

"Still within hearing range." She continued pulling me through the reading room and into the room with the piano, which really didn't seem to have a real name. She then sat down on one of the couches. "Okay. You really need to tell Derek."

"No way!" I yelled before Casey shushed me.

"Werewolf hearing remember," Casey said. "So whisper."

"Fine," I whispered. "But I am so not telling Derek anything."

"Come on! He so loves you! Haven't you realized that whenever you go into the creepy staring match with him he stares back?"

"Yeah, I guess he has… But that means nothing!"

"Do you want me to get Dan to read his mind? Is that the only thing that will convince you?"

"I don't want your cousin to invade someone's mind for my own selfish reasons."

"Then just believe me! Chloe trust me, he definitely loves you. Come on, I told you how well I can read people! And why would I lie to you? I, unlike James, do not enjoy my friends' suffering with personal issues like this! Please, I'll help you figure out how to tell him and everything! Just let me help."

"Just one question. _Why_ do you want to help me?"

"You're my friend," Casey said, sounding sort of surprised. "Why wouldn't I want to help you." _She's got a point, listen to her!__ You just want me to tell Derek I love him. __Not only, it would be good for you too.__ But you are me! __Just shut up with the technicalities and ask her to help you tell Derek.__ Fine._

"Okay," I said. "Yes, please help me."

"Yes! Okay so let's start with-" She was cut off by loud stomping coming from the stairs in the next room and then Charlie's feet coming into the room. I only know it was him because of his awesome Wolverine socks **(They actually have those! I want some so badly! Type in Wolverine socks in Google and you'll see them! Wolverine and Hugh Jackman ROCK!)**. He didn't come all the way in though, because Jake shouted from somewhere behind him, "Dude people are in there!" Charlie then screamed and jumped out of the room. A few seconds after that, some weird old sounding music came on. I turned to Casey.

"Do we really want to know what they're doing?"

"Well," she said. "I don't really want to because I think I'll regret it but I'm curious so let's go. We'll talk about this later."

"Okay," I said, following her out of the room and into the TV room which Charlie and Jake were marching around in old war uniforms to the same music. Suddenly, Charlie started singing.

"Johnnie, get your gun, Get your gun, get your gun, Take it on the run, On the run, on the run."

"Charlie shut the fuck up!" Casey yelled, jumping onto the couch next to James and then covering her ears with one of his shoulders and a pillow.

"No!" Charlie said, singing again, this time with Jake joining in. "Take it on the run, on the run, on the run. Hear them calling, you and me, every son of liberty. Hurry right away, no delay, go today, Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad."

"Charlie seriously shut up!" Alex yelled, also covering her ears.

"What are they singing anyway?" Simon asked.

"Some really stupid World War I song," Charlotte said. "Don't even ask how we learned it."

"Hey little brother," James said. "If you don't shut up right now, I'm going to tackle you, dip you in glue and feathers, then hang you upside-down in your closet for a week."

"Never!" Jake said, still singing. After a whole second, James bolted off the couch, causing Casey to fall down onto it, and headed straight towards Jake, who screamed and ran towards the doorway to the hall that led to the patio. James ran after him and they soon were out of sight, only with heavy foot falls and the continuous girlish screams from Jake to tell us that James hadn't caught up with him.

"Well that was exciting!" Charlie said. "Now back to the song. The Yanks-" He was cut off by an impressive growl from Derek that even scared me a little.

"You really need to shut up," Derek growled.

"O-o-okay," Charlie said, dropping the baton he had been waving and falling onto the couch. "You're better at growling than James is."

"Um… Thanks?" Derek said, making it sound like a question. I sighed and went to sit next to him again. He smiled at me before turning his attention back to the TV, which was now MythBusters. After like a minute, Jake came running into the room screaming and waving his hands above his head like an idiot with James still chasing him. Jake ran into the bathroom and apparently locked the door because James tried to twist the doorknob and nothing happened.

"James just leave him alone," Frank said, coming into the room.

"Yeah I love your brother," Casey said. "Hey can we have the food fight now?"

"Food fight?" Frank said, immediately alert and excited, a lot like James.

"Outside, three minutes," Kyle said. "Sound good everybody." We all said some version of "yes" before heading to the kitchen to get all of the ammo out of the fridge **(Ignore the fact that Jell-O takes like six hours to solidify please)**. We got the stuff plus like four huge spoons per person. It was decided that there were going to be no teams, just throw squishy stuff at who ever you want. I made a pact with Casey and another with Simon not to throw anything at the other. We were just at the back door when Miles and Anna showed up.

"Your dad _was_ pissed," Miles said to Casey. "In the future, always tell your dad about your secret boyfriend."

"He's not my secret boyfriend," Casey said. "You guys all knew about us begin together."

"Sadly!" Charlie yelled from the patio. I then heard him scream "OW" and looked to see James walking away "unsuspiciously." Casey started laughing.

"So where are you guys going with…" Anna said, looking at the bowls. "a bunch of pudding and Jell-O. Do I even want to know?"

"We're having a food fight!" Kyle said happily before running outside.

"Count me in," Miles said, heading towards the door. "I'm taking any chance I get to throw stuff at you guys."

"Well I guess that means I'm going too," Anna said, following him. I started walking after them along with Derek and Casey.

"I get a chance to use my awesome teleporting powers now!" Casey said happily, skipping to where everyone was setting up.

"She's really good at accepting terrible things," Derek said, watching her skip away.

"You're telling me," I said. "You should have seen her after she did it the first time. She was all excited and stuff then kind of freaked out then was excited again. It was weird."

"I think everything Casey does is weird to some extent."

"Agreed," I said just as we reached everyone else.

"Dad hurry up!" James yelled.

"OW!" Julie yelled, bringing a hand to her ear that James had evidently screamed in.

"Ha that funny," he said, pointing at Julie and laughing.

"Aw that was adorable," Casey said, going over to hug James. "And it was funny."

"Thanks guys," Julie said. "I'll just stand over hear nursing my _bleeding ear_!"

"Shut up it's not bleeding," Kyle said. Julie complained for like another minute before Frank finally showed up. Charlie immediately picked up his bowls and a spoon and dove it into the pudding. He just opened his mouth to shout "food fight!" when Casey stopped him.

"Hold on we got to start this an awesome way," she said. "How about Western showdown style?"

"Can't I just scream food fight?" Charlie whined. When Casey, and James, glared, he quickly said "Okay never mind the Western thing sounds cool." It honestly kind of did.

"Yay!" Casey cried. "James go get my iPod and speakers."

"Why me?" he whined.

"Do I seriously need to answer that?"

"Uhg fine," James said, sprinting towards the house.

"Well this should be awesome!" Simon said.

"Are you kidding me?" Tori asked. "This is like the lamest thing any of you guys have done since we got here."

"Shut up Tori," Jake said. "You're the only one who doesn't participate, which makes you lame."

"High five Jake!" Simon said, smiling like an idiot and holding up his hand for a high five which Jake gladly gave.

"Jerks," Tori muttered before going to stand by Julie. Then James came running back holding a black Nano and some speakers.

"That was fast," Casey said, taking them both from him. She started scrolling through her iPod while James caught his breath.

"No 'thank you James, you rock' or anything?" he asked.

"Thank you James, you rock," Casey said, not even glancing up. She finally found what she was looking for and plugged the iPod into her speakers. "Okay guys go form a square." We all ran to form a square while Casey finished with the song. She sort of told us what to do then started the song and ran to stand next to James. When the music, a completely perfect Western showdown song, started, we all turned slightly and walked that way then walked forward a couple steps before starting that twitchy hand thing over our bowls of pudding and Jell-O with our spoons. Right at the dramatic part of the song, Charlie screamed "FOOD FIGHT!" and we started throwing stuff at each other. I immediately nailed Tori, as did Derek, Simon, Casey, and James. She shrieked and dropped her bowls, sparks flying from her fingers. She glared at us.

"Tsk, tsk," Charlie said. "No witchy powers. Those are cheating." Suddenly, a glob of Tori's fallen pudding rose up in the air and dropped right on her head, making her scream again. "But half-demon are completely fair."

"CHARLIE!" Tori screamed, picking up her bowl and running after him. I turned my attention back to everyone else and threw some Jell-O at Charlotte. I saw James and Casey repeatedly chucking stuff at each other before I got nailed by a blob of vanilla pudding, which actually tasted good. I looked around to find Kyle aiming at me again and ducked just in time. I threw some Jell-O at him and he dodged it as well. Then Alex dumped half of a bowl over his head and he flipped out, running after her screaming swear words. We continued this for like five more minutes before I ran into a problem, Derek. I had just dodged a glob of Jell-O thrown by Miles when a ton splattered all across his face. I looked to see who had thrown it and there was Derek, standing right across from me, just staring at me. In any other situation, I would have freaked out knowing that Casey was right earlier but now wasn't really the time. I still couldn't stop myself from staring back at him though. I didn't even register the fact that someone was running right for me with a huge spoonful of pudding in their hands until Derek whipped some at them. I quickly glanced over to see Charlie stumbling backwards before looking back to Derek. I smiled at him for a thank you before throwing some Jell-O at him. He of course dodged it completely and then grinned, throwing some pudding at me. We continued repeatedly throwing stuff at each other until all our ammo ran out, which was like a minute. After another minute, everyone else was out too.

"That was awesome!" Charlie yelled, lying down on the ground, which was completely covered in like two inches of muck. I looked at everyone else and saw that almost all of them were covered head to toe in either pudding or Jell-O. It was actually pretty gross but I suspected that I looked exactly the same.

"So how exactly are we going to get clean?" Tori asked, pulling at her shirt and staring at it like it was the most disgusting thing in the world.

"We could all go skinny dipping in the pool," Kyle suggested.

"Yes!" James said, looking at Casey who glared at him. He then looked back and Kyle and said "How dare you." **(Seem familiar to anyone?)**

"Yeah I'm not going skinny dipping," Tori said.

"Sprinklers!" Charlotte said.

"Yes!" Casey said, already going to the garage where I supposed they kept them. "Who's coming with me?"

"Can we get the slip n' slide out too?" Charlie asked.

"Sure."

"Then I am!" He, Casey, and Jake ran off to get the sprinklers while the rest of us just stood there.

"This is gross," Julie said, picking up her feet one at a time and then putting them back down into the muck.

"It is _so_ not gross!" Charlotte said sarcastically. Julie gave her a weird look like she didn't understand the sarcasm. Charlotte smiled and then said "Sarcasm fight!"

"Come on," Julie whined. "You know I can't be sarcastic."

"You're right you can't," Kyle said. "But I can! Julie you're hair is _so_ cute!"

"Kyle!"

"Hey I was being serious, you're a mess." I watched the three of them plus James have a sarcasm fight, which Julie obviously lost, for like ten minutes before Casey, Charlie, and Jake finally came back with the sprinklers, the slip n' slide, and a bunch of hoses. We all helped set them up before turning on the water and jumping through the sprinklers like little kids. After like three hours, we were all actually clean but sopping wet so Frank said we could have a campfire since it was already like three to dry us off and entertain us until we were dry enough for Claire to allow back inside.

"That was fun," I said, sitting down in a chair next to Derek once the fire was started. It felt really good to sit in front of it, the water had been freezing and it wasn't all that warm out to begin with.

"Is that sarcasm?" he asked.

"No, it really was fun. Even you have to admit that."

"Okay fine, it was sort of fun. Definitely better than watching TV all day."

"Even crappy trivia shows?"

"_Especially_ crappy trivia shows. Those things couldn't get more annoying. I already know the answers to everything."

"Shut up," I said, chucking a woodchip I had been playing with at him. It missed and he laughed.

"Who wants to sing camp songs?" Julie said. "Found a Peanut!" Boone started cracking up then before joining his brother and Charlie and James in singing the song. We all started singing too, except Miles who was too "cool" according to him to sing campfire songs. We stayed outside until almost seven. By then, we had been dry for probably an hour and it had finally been the mosquitoes that had driven us in. The guys all said that they were hungry at the same exact time and all headed towards the kitchen. The rest of us followed them and by the time we got to the kitchen, it was already a mess.

"Why are guys such pigs?" Tori asked, picking up a chip bag from the mess on the counter.

"'Cause they're guys," Claire said, leaning against the wall and staring sadly at the guys throw food and rappers everywhere. Then she turned to Casey. "So you finally told you're dad about you and James?"

"Yeah," Casey said sadly. "And he wasn't quite as excepting as you and Frank were."

"That's an understatement from what I've heard from Miles."

"Definitely. Do you think you could talk to him, tell him how awesome James is and everything?"

"I'm not sure if awesome is the right word, more like unbelievably annoying and immature, but yeah I'll talk to him."

"Thank you Claire!" Casey yelled, hugging her. She then ran off to get food. I was hungry too so I followed her into the pantry. Finding that everything required a lot of work, which I really didn't feel like doing, I just grabbed some tortillas and decided to make a plain old cheese quesadilla. I had to fight my way though the guys to get to the fridge and then to the stove. I made the quesadilla then went to go eat in the TV room. I was actually the one to pick the show, and wound up turning on Whale Wars, because it's hilarious to see how serious all these people are about 'protecting' the whales.

"Ha Whale Wars," Casey said, coming in with just a thing of yoghurt. "This show is hilarious. They're so stupid! I mean it took them several days to figure out that that one ship was following them!"

"I think Julie should join the Sea Shepherds," Kyle said, vaulting over the back of the couch with a bag of chips. "She's a tree-huggerish person."

"I heard that!" Julie yelled from the kitchen.

"You were meant to!" Kyle yelled back. We watched Whale Wars until like 10, laughing at their stupidity and their seriousness at the same time. By then, I was exhausted. All of us besides Casey, James, and Jake went to bed early, all of us tired from our late nights last night. I trudged up the stairs and went to my room without saying good night to anyone. I changed into my pajamas and fell asleep instantly when I hit the pillow.

**Okay definitely not worth any of the wait am I right? Not very exciting of a chapter, but the next one will be, probably. Okay, so that song Charlie and Jake were singing was Over There. My creepy social studies teacher made us listen to WWI songs and poems for a whole day and it was absolute torture. And "Julie" and "Charlotte" actually did have a sarcasm fight a few days ago, after "Julie" didn't get the "Charlotte" was being sarcastic. And Whale Wars is completely awesome! I love making fun of those people! I'm really sorry again that it took me so long to update and I'll really try not to take as long this time. Summers almost here, meaning less than a week for me, so it shouldn't take that long to update again. I am thinking about writing a story for Vampire Academy too so that might conflict with this one if I decide to do it. So, PLEASE PLEASE review! I love getting them and they usually make me write faster! Adios! **


	19. Last Author's Note

Okay guys, now don't be too mad at me okay. I'm not going to continue with this story. I know I messed it up and it's hard for me to write a pre-Reckoning story when I've already read it, so I'm just not having any more fun with the story and can't really think of how to continue it because I got so sidetracked from the main plot. Sorry guys. If you guys want me to write a post-Reckoning story, I'll try and I promise to stick to the plot as much as possible, just review or PM me telling me you want another story. If enough people want one, I'll start writing it but I have no idea when I'll actually post it. I'll also try to cut down on the length of those chapters. And some of my characters from this story might be in the next one, although they would change slightly. Anyway, just tell me if you want me to write something else and again I'm sorry about quitting with this one.

Kate


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